Music / Hans Zimmer

BWOOOOOOOONG

Should you ever decide to make a high-octane glossy action Hollywood blockbuster and are looking for someone to compose a brassy and kick-ass soundtrack to complement the CGI wizardry and Scenery Porn on screen, German composer Hans Florian Zimmer (born September 12, 1957 in Frankfurt am Main) will be pretty high up on your list.

Zimmer initially started his career in 1977 as a session musician, working with artists ranging from New Wave group The Buggles to Punk Rock outfit The Damned. Moving to London as a result of his studio work, he started cutting advertising jingles before partnering with film composer Stanley Myers, building the Lillie Yard recording studio and composing soundtracks for various independent films. In 1987, Zimmer got to produce Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Byrne's score for The Last Emperor, and this in turn set the stage for his breakthrough as the composer for Rain Man the following year. Since then, Zimmer has remained an in-demand film scorer for decades.

In addition to Rain Man, Zimmer is most famous for his music for The Lion King (1994), The Rock, Crimson Tide, Pirates of the Caribbean, Gladiator, Christopher Nolan's films, and (for the gamers out there) the theme for Modern Warfare 2, among some 200 soundtracks he composed. Of course, he did other genres (even composing a number of animated films from DreamWorks Animation), but it's usually the big brass and violin numbers he wrote for action set pieces that get remembered.

He is known for frequently working with several directors, namely Ridley Scott, Gore Verbinski, and Zack Snyder alongside the aforementioned Nolan. He has also trained a number of other composers, including Mark Mancina, John Powell, Nick Glennie-Smith, Henry Jackman, Klaus Badelt, Steve Jablonsky, and Lorne Balfe. His Japanese equivalent is Yuki Kajiura, known for her eclectic blends of synth with real instruments and soloists. He can also be viewed as the remixed modern-day Ennio Morricone.

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Some of his works include (in chronological order):

• Rain Man (1988)
• Paperhouse
• Driving Miss Daisy (1989), for which he performed the entire thing himself on synthesizers.
• Twister (1989, a comedy, not the Bill Paxton-Helen Hunt disaster movie)
• Days of Thunder (1990)
• White Fang (1991) (additional music; then-Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg intended for Zimmer to replace the film's composer Basil Poledouris. (Perhaps due to Poledouris being the director's Associated Composer, the finished product has substantial amounts of both scores; Poledouris has "Music By" credit on the film.)
• Backdraft (1991)
• Regarding Henry (1991) Replacing Georges Delerue.
• Thelma & Louise (1991)
• Radio Flyer (1992)
• The Power of One (1992)
  • Some tracks from this film would later be re-used in the IMAX Nature Documentary Africa: The Serengeti.
• Space Rangers (1993) (1993) Series theme only.
• Cool Runnings (1993)
• The Critic (1994) Series theme only.
• The Lion King (1994) (with Elton John and Tim Rice)
  • The Lion King (2019) (with Pharrell Williams)
• Crimson Tide (1995)
• High Incident (1996-97) Series theme only.
• Muppet Treasure Island (1996)
• Broken Arrow (1996) (1996)
• The Rock (1996, with Nick Glennie-Smith)
• The Peacemaker (1997; the first film released by DreamWorks SKG, where Zimmer served as its head of music.
• The Thin Red Line (1998, with John Powell)
• The Prince of Egypt (1998)
• Gladiator (2000)
• The Road to El Dorado (2000, with John Powell)
• Mission: Impossible II (2000)
• Black Hawk Down (2001)
• Pearl Harbor (2001)
• The Ring and its sequel (2002 and 2005)
• Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002)
• The Last Samurai (2003)
• The Pirates of the Caribbean films^note  (The Curse of The Black Pearl was mainly scored by Klaus Badelt, with Zimmer only contributing) (2003-2011)
• Shark Tale (2003)
• King Arthur (2004)
• Laura's Star (2004)
• Thunderbirds (2004)
• The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2004, with Julian Nott)
• The Madagascar films (2005-2012)
• The Dark Knight Trilogy
  • Batman Begins (2005, with James Newton Howard)
  • The Dark Knight (2008, also with James Newton Howard)
  • The Dark Knight Rises (2012, this time without James Newton Howard)
• The Holiday (2006, with Heitor Pereira)
• The Da Vinci Code (2006, with Graham Preskitt)
• The Simpsons Movie (2007, took over music production of the series itself as of season 29 and provided music for The Simpsons Game)
  • Maggie Simpson in "The Longest Daycare" (2012)
• The Kung Fu Panda films (2008-2024, the first two with John Powell, the fourth with Steve Mazzaro)
• Transformers Film Series (2009, 2014; additional music composition)
  • Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen
  • Transformers: Age of Extinction
• Sherlock Holmes (2009)
  • Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)
• Megamind (2010, with Lorne Balfe)
• Inception (2010)
• Rango (2011)
• The Dilemma (2011, with Lorne Balfe)
• Crysis 2 (2011, with Borislav Slavov and Tilman Sillescu)
• Rush (2013)
• The Lone Ranger (2013)
• 12 Years a Slave (2013)
• DC Extended Universe
  • Man of Steel (2013)
  • Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016, with Junkie XL)
  • Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
• The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (with the Magnificent Six, Pharrell Williams and Johnny Marr) (2014)
• Interstellar (2014)
• The Boss Baby (2017, with Steve Mazzaro)
  • The Boss Baby: Family Business (2021, with Steve Mazzaro)
• Dunkirk (2017)
• Blade Runner 2049 (2017, with Benjamin Wallfisch). Replaced Jóhann Jóhannsson.
• Widows (2018)
• Dark Phoenix (2019)
• Hillbilly Elegy (2020)
• No Time to Die (2021, with Steve Mazzaro and Johnny Marr). Replaced Dan Romer.
• Dune
  • Dune: Part One (2021)
  • Dune: Part Two (2024)
  • Dune Messiah (TBA)^note The film has not been announced yet but Zimmer is already working on the soundtrack
• Army of Thieves (2021, with Steve Mazzaro)
• Top Gun: Maverick (2022, with Harold Faltermeyer, Lorne Balfe and Lady Gaga)
• Prehistoric Planet (2022)
• Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (2023)
• The Creator (2023)

Tropes

• Brilliant, but Lazy: Has admitted to this, saying that he would spend moments at a time doing seemingly nothing and that it's an irresponsible life to live:
  Hans Zimmer: I wake up around noon, light a cigarette, get a cup of coffee, sit in the bathtub for an hour and daydream, and I usually come up with some ideas... It's a very irresponsible life. The only decisions I make are about the notes I'm writing.
• Self-Plagiarism: All the time
  • Compare this Modern Warfare 2 Soundtrack with Blackhawk Down. Still very epic.
  • His Batman Begins theme appears first in Black Rain, and later in No Time to Die. His theme for the finale of The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises is used in a flashback scene during The Thin Red Line.
  • During the end of Dead Man's Chest the music sounds like it was 'borrowed' from King Arthur (2004).
  • Remnant of Kingdom of Heaven soundtrack ^note  however, he only contributed a little, leaving the majority of the work to Harry Gregson-Williams can be heard in Angels & Demons.
  • The Inception and 12 Years a Slave themes are very much alike.
  • His theme from The Critic uses the same chord progression as his theme from Driving Miss Daisy (with a little bit of George Gershwin's "Rhapsody In Blue" thrown in for good measure).
  • Well aware of his tendency to do this, Christopher Nolan strictly forbade him from doing this for Interstellar, asking for an entirely original composition.

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