THE TOP FORTY COUNTDOWN 2005: PART FOUR

By Scott Bettencourt

11. John Debney
12. John Powell
13. Rolfe Kent
14. Marco Beltrami
15. David Newman
16. John Ottman
17. Rachel Portman
18. Craig Armstrong
19. Elliot Goldenthal
20. John Ottman
21. Michael Giacchino
22. Mychael Danna
23. Mark Isham
24. Christophe Beck
25. Trevor Rabin
26. Jan A.P. Kaczmarek
27. Patrick Doyle
28. David Arnold
29. Carter Burwell
30. Edward Shearmur
31. Graeme Revell
32. Gabriel Yared
33. Alexandre Desplat
34. George Fenton
35. Klaus Badelt
36. Christopher Young
37. Jon Brion
38. Steve Jablonsky
39. Teddy Castellucci
40. Richard Gibbs

And now, what you've all been waiting for ­ the least surprising, most predictable part of the list, the names that have pretty much stayed the same for the last three years...

2004 RANKING: 37
AGE: 43
REPRESENTATION: Gorfaine/Schwartz
BACKGROUND: Child choir singer, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, orchestrator for Stanley Myers, Media Ventures
ONGOING FILMMAKER RELATIONSHIPS: Tony Scott, Joel Schumacher, Andrew Adamson, Dreamworks, Dan Ireland
FAN FAVORITE: Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas
TYPECAST IN: Animation
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Shrek 2--436
2. Shrek--263
3. Enemy of the State--111
4. Spy Kids--111
5. Chicken Run--106
6. Antz--90
7. Man on Fire--77
8. Spy Game--60
9. The Rundown--47
10. Phone Booth--46

The Tony Scott-directed remake of Man on Fire was a moderate boxoffice success, though Gregson-Williams' original score had to make room for a daunting amount of temp track music (though not as much as the current Miss Congeniality 2, which even features a little of G-W's Chicken Run score), and even some of the original cues sounded like they were left over from Lisa Gerrard's contribution to Gladiator. Shrek 2 featured the reuse of themes written for the original film by Gregson-Williams and John Powell, but Gregson-Williams wrote the sequel score by himself, and the film proved to be a staggering boxoffice success, outgrossing the hugely successful original by 173 million, more money than most of last year's hits even made. Having a hit that size on his resume can only help, but his upcoming assignments are even more impressive. He scores his fourth film for Tony Scott, the fact-based thriller Domino (about actor Laurence Harvey's lesbian bounty hunter daughter, but since this is a Hollywood film they've dropped the lesbianism), and his first for Tony's brother Ridley, the Crusades epic Kingdom of Heaven, the director's first film in eight years without a Hans Zimmer score. As if Kingdom weren't a challenging enough assignment, Gregson-Williams will score the latest big-scale attempt at creating a fantasy franchise, the first in C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series, for Shrek director Andrew Adamson.

WHAT'S NEXT: Kingdom of Heaven, Domino, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

2004 RANKING: 9
AGE: 55
BIRTHPLACE: New York, New York
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
2 OSCAR NOMINATIONS
2 GRAMMY NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Forrest Gump
RELATIONSHIPS: Robert Zemeckis, Stephen Sommers
BACKGROUND: Berklee College of Music, pop arranger, TV composer (ChiPs)
FAN FAVORITES: Predator, Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Mummy Returns
TYPECAST IN: Adventure, comedy
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Forrest Gump--329
2. Cast Away--233
3. Back to the Future--208
4. The Mummy Returns--202
5. What Women Want--182
6. The Polar Express--162
7. What Lies Beneath--155
8. Who Framed Roger Rabbit--154
9. Lilo & Stitch--145
10. Stuart Little--140

Silvestri bounced back after a disappointing 2003 with two highly successful, megabudget productions. Van Helsing, his second film for Mummy Returns director Stephen Sommers, featured one of the composer's liveliest scores, though the director's love of dramatic and musical overkill at times turned the film into a headache-inducing symphony for timpani. The Polar Express, his eleventh feature score for director Robert Zemeckis, appeared at first to be a boxoffice disaster but had surprising legs, staying in theaters for months and proving to be one of the composer's highest grossing films (helped by the popularity of the film's IMAX 3-D incarnation). It was the composer's first screen musical and earned him his second Oscar nomination, for the Josh Groban ballad "Believe," though the soundtrack album emphasizes songs and omits most of Silvestri's most exciting music, frustrating his fans. Next year he'll score his fourth fully animated feature (not counting projects like Roger Rabbit and the Stuart Little films), Disney's The Wild.

WHAT'S NEXT: The Wild

2004 RANKING: 8
AGE: 61
BIRTHPLACE: Los Angeles, California
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
1 OSCAR, 16 NOMINATIONS
2 EMMYS
3 GRAMMYS, 11 NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Awakenings, Seabiscuit
RELATIONSHIPS: Pixar, Jay Roach, Barry Levinson, Gary Ross
BACKGROUND: Nephew of Alfred Newman, popular singer-songwriter-pianist
FAN FAVORITE: The Natural
TYPECAST IN: Americana, comedy, computer animation
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Meet the Fockers--278 (as of 4/17/05)
2. Monsters Inc.--252
3. Toy Story 2--245
4. Toy Story--191
5. Meet the Parents--166
6. A Bug's Life--162
7. Seabiscuit--120
8. Maverick--101
9. Parenthood--100
10. Michael--95

No one is likely to view Randy Newman's Meet the Fockers score as one of the great works of his career, but separated from the film the music has its charms, and more importantly, the film has proved to be not only the highest grossing film of Newman's career but one of the highest grossing live action comedies of all time (at least, in the U.S.). Next year, he'll reunite with Pixar (makers of his biggest hits whose titles don't start with "Meet the") for the computer animated Cars.

WHAT'S NEXT: Cars

2004 RANKING: 7
AGE: 53
BIRTHPLACE: Los Angeles, California
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
6 OSCAR NOMINATIONS
1 EMMY, 3 NOMINATIONS
1 GRAMMY NOMINATION
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: The Prince of Tides, The Fugitive, The Sixth Sense
RELATIONSHIPS: M. Night Shyamalan, Garry Marshall, P.J. Hogan, Lawrence Kasdan, Michael Hoffman, Barry Sonnenfeld, Joe Roth
BACKGROUND: U.S.C., Music Academy of the West, pop keyboardist, song arranger
FAN FAVORITE: Signs
TYPECAST IN: Adventure, thrillers, Julia Roberts comedy
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. The Sixth Sense--293
2. Signs--227
3. The Fugitive--183
4. Pretty Woman--178
5. Runaway Bride--152
6. Dinosaur--137
7. My Best Friend's Wedding--126
8. The Village--114
9. Collateral--100
10. Unbreakable--95

Howard had a creatively satisfying 2004, including two projects which joined his already impressive list of top grossers, as well as a third, Hidalgo, which despite its many pleasures did disappointing boxoffice, but featured a satisfyingly old-fashioned big scale adventure score which is one of his most instantly gratifying works. It's surprising that composers of the level of Howard and Goldenthal would choose to work with a director like Michael Mann, who is famous for interpolating pre-existing cues and the works of other composers, but Howard seemed to know what he was getting into when he signed on for Collateral (both Craig Armstrong and Hans Zimmer had been rumored for the job), and apparently didn't even mind that Mann used Antonio Pinto's scoring for the film's finale as well as cues from Heat, The Insider, and even 1492. The score again demonstrated Howard's impressive range but frustratingly only 7 minutes of his music were featured on the CD. His fourth project for M. Night Shyamalan, The Village, was an unusually weak effort for the filmmaker but featured one of Howard's strongest and freshest compositions. The fact that it earned an Oscar nomination despite the film's largely bad reviews is a strong indicator of the esteem with which Howard is held in the film score world. Tomorrow sees the release of his latest assignment, Sidney Pollack's suspense thriller The Interpreter, and his upcoming projects are an unusually eclectic group -- the urban drama Freedomland, the Barry Sonnenfeld comedy R.V., and, most promisingly, a collaboration with his friend Hans Zimmer on the eagerly awaited origin ish, Batman Begins.

WHAT'S NEXT: The Interpreter, Batman Begins, Freedomland, R.V.

2004 RANKING: 5
AGE: 51
BIRTHPLACE: Los Angeles, California
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
2 OSCARS, 9 NOMINATIONS
3 GRAMMYS, 7 NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: The Dresser, Apollo 13, Braveheart, Titanic, A Beautiful Mind
RELATIONSHIPS: Ron Howard, James Cameron, Martin Campbell, Wolfgang Peterson
BACKGROUND: Son of production designer Harry Horner, Royal College of Music (under Gyorgi Lygeti), U.C.L.A., student film scores, low budget features
FAN FAVORITE: Star Trek II
TYPECAST IN: Adventure, Oscar bait
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Titanic--600
2. How the Grinch Stole Christmas--260
3. The Perfect Storm--182
4. Apollo 13--172
5. A Beautiful Mind--170
6. Deep Impact--140
7. Ransom--136
8. Troy--133
9. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids--130
10. Clear and Present Danger--122

While he has not demonstrated any creative breakthroughs recently, Horner has shown an impressive tendency to balance projects of different scales and styles. His first film last year was the underrated golfing biopic Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius, and his score was quite appealing until it suddenly and disappointingly turned into Braveheart for the final reels. The pluses and minuses of Horner's talents were demonstrated in his last minute replacement score for Troy, which featured exciting orchestral cues as well as a disappointing reliance on familiar musical tropes (like the infamous Horner four-note "danger motif"). His final score of the year, for the sci-fi thriller The Forgotten, was a big disappointment, unimaginative and heavy handed, and lacking the inspiration and compositional strength of his early scores in the genre like Wolfen. While hits like Titanic and his many Ron Howard projects insure that Horner will long be a top choice for megabuget movies, he's unexpectedly devoting much of his time to more arthouse-oriented projects, like Robert Towne's dream project, the literary adaptation Ask the Dust, and the American Beauty-ish suburban satire The Chumscrubber. Lest fans worry about Horner's bank account, he's expected to return to blockbusters with Ron Howard's film of the bestseller The DaVinci Code, to star Tom Hanks, and Howard (and presumably Horner) may follow DaVinci with yet another great scoring opportunity, a remake of East of Eden.

WHAT'S NEXT: Ask the Dust, The Chumscrubber

2004 RANKING: 6
AGE: 58
BIRTHPLACE: Toronto, Canada
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
3 OSCARS
3 GRAMMYS, 4 NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: The Silence of the Lambs, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, Gangs of New York, The Return of the King, The Aviator
RELATIONSHIPS: Peter Jackson, David Cronenberg, David Fincher, Martin Scorsese
BACKGROUND: Pop musician, Saturday Night Live bandleader
FAN FAVORITES: Lord of the Rings series
TYPECAST IN: Thrillers
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King--377
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers--339
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring--313
4. Mrs. Doubtfire--219
5. The Silence of the Lambs--130
6. Big--114
7. Analyze This--106
8. The Aviator--102 (as of 4/17/05)
9. Seven--100
10. Panic Room--95

Shore's work for the Lord of the Rings trilogy must be considered a remarkable success in every way -- creatively, critically and commercially -- and it even earned him three Academy Awards (don't forget that John Williams only won one Oscar for his five Star Wars scores, and Goldsmith's Star Trek scores and John Barry's James Bond music was never so honored). His first score since the trilogy, for Martin Scorsese's stylish, engrossing Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator, was a richly satisfying mix of orchestral energy and the kind of psychological scoring that has always been one of Shore's strong suits. The much desired ten-disc set of Shore's Rings music is unlikely to arrive this year, so fans will have to settle for two promising but wildly disparate projects -- David Cronenberg's psychological drama A History of Violence, and Peter Jackson's lavish remake of King Kong.

WHAT'S NEXT: King Kong, A History of Violence

2004 RANKING: 4
AGE: 47
BIRTHPLACE: Frankfurt, Germany
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
1 OSCAR, 7 NOMINATIONS
1 GRAMMY, 4 NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Rain Man, Driving Miss Daisy, As Good As It Gets, The Thin Red Line, Gladiator
RELATIONSHIPS: Ridley Scott, Dreamworks, Jerry Bruckheimer, Penny Marshall, James L. Brooks, Barry Levinson, Tom Cruise, Antoine Fuqua, Gore Verbinski
BACKGROUND: Keyboardist, pop musician, protege to Stanley Myers, founder of Media Ventures
FAN FAVORITES: Gladiator, The Thin Red Line
TYPECAST IN: Epics, action, Oscar bait, animation
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. The Lion King--312
2. Mission: Impossible 2--215
3. Pearl Harbor--198
4. Gladiator--187
5. Rain Man--172
6. Hannibal--165
7. Shark Tale--160
8. As Good As It Gets--148
9. The Rock--134
10. The Ring--128

Zimmer's biggest hit last year was coincidentally one of the most dispiriting blockbusters of 2004, the well crafted but utterly uninspired Shark Tale. If nothing else, Zimmer's music was one of the most tolerable elements, though virtually none of his score made it onto the soundtrack LP -- being head of the DreamWorks music department apparently doesn't count for much when soundtrack production time comes around. His score for James L. Brooks' Spanglish, though occasionally overspotted, was a nicely relaxed counterpoint to all the onscreen hysteria, and though he only took a "themes by" credit on the current The Ring Two (Martin Tillman and Henning Lohner receive the score credit), at least the sequel led to some of the original Ring score, one of Zimmer's strongest yet most restrained efforts in recent years, making its belated way to CD. He's scoring DreamWorks latest CGI feature, the animal comedy Madagascar (which at least should be a big improvement on Shark Tale), and has three consecutive projects with Ring director Gore Verbinski -- the American Beauty-ish The Weather Man, and two back-to-back Pirates of the Caribbean sequels. Most promisingly, Zimmer and his friend James Newton Howard team up for the prequel Batman Begins, probably the first collaboration between A-list composers since Newman and Herrmann scored The Egyptian 51 years ago.

WHAT'S NEXT: Batman Begins, The Weather Man, Madagascar, Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest, Pirates of the Caribbean 3

2004 RANKING: 3
AGE: 49
BIRTHPLACE: Los Angeles, California
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
7 OSCAR NOMINATIONS
1 EMMY, 2 NOMINATIONS
1 GRAMMY, 4 NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Scent of a Woman, The Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty, The Green Mile, Erin Brockovich
RELATIONSHIPS: Sam Mendes, Jon Avnet, Ron Howard
BACKGROUND: Son of Alfred Newman, Yale, pop and theater composer
FAN FAVORITE: The Shawshank Redemption
TYPECAST IN: Oscar bait
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Finding Nemo--339
2. The Green Mile--136
3. American Beauty--130
4. Erin Brockovich--125
5. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events--118
6. Phenomenon--104
7. Road to Perdition--104
8. Fried Green Tomatoes--82
9. The Horse Whisperer--75
10. Scent of a Woman--62

A little over a year ago, Newman wrote one of his finest scores for the HBO adaptation of Tony Kushner's award winning play Angels in America, and, shockingly, his music (which was better than 95 percent of the feature scores being written today) wasn't even nominated for an Emmy. His only feature project for 2004 was the gorgeously crafted Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, and though his score had strong echoes of such earlier Newman works as Unstrung Heroes (whose story it slightly resembles) and Finding Nemo (his previous family film blockbuster), the score was highly effective in context and earned the composer his seventh Oscar nomination. His two films for 2005 return him to Oscar bait turf with two very different true life dramas -- Ron Howard's Depression era boxing biopic Cinderella Man (Howard's first film without James Horner in six years) and the Gulf War memoir Jarhead, for his regular collaborator Sam Mendes.

WHAT'S NEXT: Cinderella Man, Jarhead

2004 RANKING: 2
AGE: 51
BIRTHPLACE: Amarillo, Texas
REP: Kraft-Engel
3 OSCAR NOMINATIONS
1 EMMY NOMINATION
7 GRAMMY NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Good Will Hunting, Chicago
RELATIONSHIPS: Sam Raimi, Tim Burton, Brett Ratner
BACKGROUND: Rock singer-songwriter (Oingo Boingo)
FAN FAVORITES: Batman, Mission: Impossible
TYPECAST IN: Comic book movies, Oscar bait
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Spider-Man--403
2. Spider-Man 2--373
3. Batman--251
4. Men in Black--250
5. Men in Black II--190
6. Mission: Impossible--180
7. Planet of the Apes--179
8. Chicago--170
9. Batman Returns--162
10. Good Will Hunting--138

Elfman had one of his biggest boxoffice hits last year with the critically acclaimed Spider-Man 2, though the experience was a creatively mixed one -­ his contribution was as strong as ever, adroitly developing his themes from the original film while adding impressive new material, but the film's protracted editing period and director Sam Raimi's apparent affection for the temp track led to some major (and credited) rescoring by other composers, with John Debney and Christopher Young scoring major sequences (one Young cue was, at the director's insistence, a virtual rewrite of some of his Hellbound music). Though S-M2 was his only release for 2004, Elfman is staying remarkably busy, providing songs and score for Tim Burton's stop-motion musical Corpse Bride, an original score for Burton's remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as well as two upcoming animated projects based on beloved children's novels -- Charlotte's Web and A Day With Wilbur Robinson.

WHAT'S NEXT: Charlie and the Chocolate Factor, Corpse Bride, A Day with Wilbur Robinson, Charlotte's Web

2004 RANKING: 1
AGE: 73
BIRTHPLACE: Long Island, New York
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
5 OSCARS, 43 NOMINATIONS
2 EMMYS, 4 NOMINATIONS
18 GRAMMYS, 52 NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Fiddler on the Roof, Jaws, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Born on the Fourth of July, JFK, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan
RELATIONSHIPS: Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Chris Columbus
BACKGROUND: U.C.L.A., session pianist (for Goldsmith & Bernstein), TV composer, concert music
FAN FAVORITES: Spielberg movies, Star Wars series
TYPECAST IN: Fantasy adventure, Oscar bait
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Star Wars--460
2. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial--434
3. The Phantom Menace--431
4. Jurassic Park--357
5. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone--316
6. Attack of the Clones--310
7. Return of the Jedi--309
8. The Empire Strikes Back--290
9. Home Alone--285
10. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets--261
 
One could almost say that John Williams' career is on autopilot, as he's forged relationships with such successful filmmakers (Spielberg, Lucas, Columbus, Stone) and been involved with so many blockbuster franchises (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, Home Alone) that he doesn't have to give a moment's thought to what his next project will be. What makes him still the top composer in Hollywood is the effort he puts into each score, as last year's output was as original as ever, with his Oscar nominated Harry Potter score presenting a wealth of new melodies and utilizing a fresh and fitting medieval sound, while The Terminal was a light and charming effort that paid homage to the Hollywood era that produced him, the age of Mancini and Newman. This year will feature three very different projects (and a Harry Potter score by another composer, Patrick Doyle), with his sixth (and presumably final) Star Wars score linking the two trilogies together musically; the War of the Worlds remake allowing Williams and Spielberg to present the flip side of their classic E.T.; and the Spielberg--produced, long-in-development Memoirs of a Geisha allowing Williams to work in the kind of Asian milieu that has given birth to so many wonderful scores, from Golden Age classics like Anna and the King of Siam, Love is a Many Splendored Thing and Sayonara, to Goldsmith greats like The Sand Pebbles, The Chairman, and Tora! Tora! Tora!

WHAT'S NEXT: Revenge of the Sith, War of the Worlds, Memoirs of a Geisha

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