There have been five Spider-Man movies to date, and more than that many Spider-Man composers. Danny Elfman wrote the music for Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, and Christopher Young built on his themes for Spider-Man 3. Marc Webb brought in James Horner to score The Amazing Spider-Man and Hans Zimmer and the “Magnificent Six,” a supergroup that included Pharrell, Johnny Marr, and Junkie XL, for The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
By now we all know that composer Michael Giacchino is doing pretty darn well for himself. He took over Rogue One scoring duties from Alexandre Desplat after writing the music for this year’s Doctor Strange, Star Trek Beyond, and Zootopia, and it’s been announced that he’ll also provide the soundtrack for Spider-Man: Homecoming, War for the Planet of the Apes, and The Incredibles 2. Now, a small throwaway line from a recent interview tells us that, yes, he’ll be returning to Isla Nublar to score Jurassic World 2.
Michael Giacchino recently inherited scoring duties for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story after Alexandre Desplat had to bow out over scheduling conflicts — so recently, in fact, that he only had a month to compose the soundtrack for the whole movie. He’s been on a pretty successful tear though a bunch of franchises: he provided the music for Doctor Strange, the Star Trek revivals, and the upcoming Spider-Man: Homecoming, so he sounded like a good fit for the Star Wars universe too when we heard he’d been hired on. Today, we got our first listen at some of the new pieces, and they’re perfect.
In the four decades that Star Wars has dominated pop culture, we’ve never had to hear a soundtrack for a live-action movie that wasn’t written by John Williams. Williams wrote the original trilogy, and then the follow-up prequels, and even dove back in for the soundtrack for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. So the fact that Williams did not write the music for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is just one of many ways in which Rogue One represents a departure from the main story. No Star Wars crawl, no John Williams, no problem? I guess we’ll see.
While most of the films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have managed to please audiences and critics alike, in recent months, the Marvel soundtrack has come under fire for its lack of imagination. Last month, for example, the popular video essay channel Every Frame a Painting devoted an entire video to this subject, beginning with a demonstration that your average moviegoer cannot even remember a specific theme from a Marvel movie. This is why fans were so happy when Michael Giacchino was added to Doctor Strange; at least this way there would be some musical skills to match all those trippy visuals.
Marvel has been steadily building up the hype for Doctor Strange, which is due out in theaters in only a few short weeks. Today, they released the end credits track off of the movie’s score, composed by Hollywood’s own musical magician Michael Giacchino (Ratatouille, Jurassic World, Star Trek Beyond), and it’s. so. good.