THE 2008 TOP FORTY COMPOSER COUNTDOWN, PART FOUR

Okay, kids, line up for the class photo:

11. Harry Gregson-Williams
12. Randy Newman
13. Marco Beltrami
14. Dario Marianelli
15. Carter Burwell
16. Mark Isham
17. Trevor Rabin
18. Alan Menken
19. John Ottman
20. Christopher Young
21. Aaron Zigman
22. Alan Silvestri
23. Theodore Shapiro
24. Rupert Gregson-Williams
25. John Debney
26. Mychael Danna
27. Teddy Castellucci
28. Alberto Iglesias
29. Tyler Bates
30. Marc Shaiman
31. David Arnold
32. Christophe Beck
33. Rolfe Kent
34. David Newman
35. Patrick Doyle
36. Gustavo Santolalla
37. Ramin Djawadi
38. Klaus Badelt
39. Randy Edelman
40. Edward Shearmur

All right, Seniors in front...

2007 RANKING: 9
AGE: 54
BIRTHPLACE: Los Angeles, California
REPRESENTATION: Gorfaine/Schwartz
2 OSCARS, 9 NOMINATIONS
3 GRAMMYS, 7 NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: The Dresser, Apollo 13, Braveheart, Titanic, A Beautiful Mind
ONGOING FILMMAKER RELATIONSHIPS: James Cameron, Mel Gibson, Vadim Perelman
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 (U.S. gross in millions)
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

For a composer who was once the most prolific in Hollywood -- he had ten (!!) films released in 1993, and none of those scores were brief -- Horner's output has become much more sporadic, but a Titanic-sized success can buy a composer a lot of vacation time. He had no films released in 2007, but he began 2008 with his most overtly commercial project in years, The Spiderwick Chronicles. The film has proved to be only a modest success in theaters, but is the kind of effects-laden fantasy film that has inspired much of Horner's most beloved music, and his score was a warm and effective effort. As per his recent tendency, he continues to balance big and small scale projects, as upcoming are two dramas, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and The Life Before Her Eyes (aka In Bloom), the latter of which reunites him with his House of Sand and Fog director Vadim Perelman. And next year (if all goes on schedule) sees his most exciting new project of all, a reunion with James Cameron for the sci-fi epic Avatar.

WHAT'S NEXT: The Life Before Her Eyes, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, Avatar

2007 RANKING: 17
AGE: 40
BIRTHPLACE: Riverside, New Jersey
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
1 OSCAR NOMINATION
1 EMMY, 2 NOMINATIONS
1 GRAMMY, 3 GRAMMY NOMINATIONS
RELATIONSHIPS: J.J. Abrams, Brad Bird
BACKGROUND: Julliard, UCLA, game composer, TV composer (Alias, Lost)
TYPECAST IN: animation
FAN FAVORITE: The Incredibles
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. The Incredibles--261
2. Ratatouille--206
3. Mission: Impossible III--133
4. Cloverfield--79 (as of 3/30/08)
5. Sky High--63
6. The Family Stone--59

Giacchino has only had seven major films released (the Albert Brooks comedy Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World grossed less than a million and thus isn't listed above), but within four years of scoring his first big feature (The Incredibles) he has earned his first Oscar nomination and become one of the most in-demand composers in Hollywood. He worked his way into the feature big leagues through two excellent training grounds -- video games, where his scores for The Lost World and the Medal of Honor series made him a rapidly rising star in the field, and television, where he continues to score Lost, still one of the medium's most talked-about programs. Ratatouille, reuniting him with Incredibles director Brad Bird, proved to be one of his biggest critical and commercial successes, his score earning positive mentions in many reviews as well as an Oscar nomination. While his score for Cloverfield consists of only an end title "overture," his homage to the Japanese monster scores of Akira Ifukube is one of the film's highlights. Next up are big budget movie versions of two popular favorites from the '60s -- the live-action version of Speed Racer, and J.J. Abrams' prequel look at the crew of the original Star Trek.

WHAT'S NEXT: Speed Racer, Star Trek

2007 RANKING: 7
AGE: 45
BIRTHPLACE: Paris, France
REP: Kraft-Engel
1 OSCAR NOMINATION
BEST PICTURE NOMINEE: The Queen
RELATIONSHIPS: Jacques Audiard, Florent Siri
BACKGROUND: European cinema
FAN FAVORITE: Birth
TYPECAST IN: Thrillers, Oscar bait
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. The Golden Compass--70
2. The Queen--56
3. Syriana--50
4. Firewall--48
5. Hostage--34
6. Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium--31
7. The Upside of Anger--18
8. Girl with a Pearl Earring--11
9. Casanova--11
10. The Painted Veil--7

Desplat made his name in Hollywood with relatively small-scale, intimate projects like Girl with a Pearl Earring, Birth, and especially The Queen, so the megabudget fantasy The Golden Compass was a major step forward for him. While the film proved to be the composer's highest grosser, it was considered a big money-loser in relation to its budget (and may have proved to be the final nail in New Line Cinema's coffin), yet the film was generally well reviewed and even earned an Oscar for its visual effects. Desplat's score showed a lot of variety and his usual flair for melody, though the moderate box-office suggests he's not likely to be typecast in the genre yet. He provided an even more impressive score for Ang Lee's beautifully mounted romantic thriller Lust, Caution, evocative and full of tension, and it's hoped he continues to work with the eclectic director. The French farce The Valet received a U.S. release as well, and while he was unable to complete the score to the children's fantasy Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, Aaron Zigman took on the assignment using Desplat's themes, with the two composers sharing the scoring credit. His next two projects take him back to a smaller scale, with Seven Pounds reuniting the director and star of The Pursuit of Happyness, and Julie & Julia casting Meryl Streep as Julia Child in a Nora Ephron comedy.

WHAT'S NEXT: Seven Pounds, Julie & Julia

2007 RANKING: 6
AGE: 61
BIRTHPLACE: Toronto, Canada
REP: Columbia Artists Management
3 OSCARS
3 GRAMMYS, 6 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, The Departed
RELATIONSHIPS: 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 Departed--132
6. The Silence of the Lambs--130
7. Big--114
8. Analyze This--106
9. The Aviator--102
10. Seven--100

Shore has spent most of the decade scoring such big movies as The Aviator, The Departed, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, so it's understandable that he'd take a break with more modestly scaled films. He began the year with the pleasant sci-fi fantasy The Last Mimzy, whose director, Robert Shaye, is the president of New Line Cinema (which released, of course, of all those Lord of the Rings films), and Shore's score was charming though not one of his major efforts. His second film of the year, Eastern Promises, made even less money but was one of director David Cronenberg's most well regarded films, and Shore's delicate main theme helped give the film a strong emotional underpinning. Film music fans hope that Shore will be involved with the planned film version(s) of The Hobbit, but in the meantime his opera version of The Fly, directed by Cronenberg, will premiere in Paris this July.

2007 RANKING: 4
AGE: 52
BIRTHPLACE: Los Angeles, California
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
8 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: Alan Ball, Todd Field, Sam Mendes, Andrew Stanton
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--63

Like fellow A-listers John Williams, James Horner and Randy Newman, Thomas Newman had no new films released in 2007, and the year in film music was poorer for it. He has three widely diverse films lined up with past collaborators, an intriguing mixture of the commercial and the ambitious. The most potentially exciting musically is WALL-E, a CGI feature about a space-traveling robot, which reunites Newman with Finding Nemo director Andrew Stanton. As a Newman devotee, the prospect of him taking on futuristic, interstellar subject matter has me virtually salivating (more than you needed to know, I realize). Nothing Is Private (aka Towelhead), the directorial debut of American Beauty/Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball, received mixed reviews at festivals (the Hollywood Reporter said that "Newman, who contributed that oft-imitated Beauty score, has come up with an appropriate variation on those previous themes"), and is due in theaters this August. He closes the year with an ideal project, Sam Mendes' film of the Richard Yates' novel Revolutionary Road (not to be confused with Reservation Road), a '50s suburban drama which reteams Titanic stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

WHAT'S NEXT: Wall-E, Nothing Is Private, Revolutionary Road

2007 RANKING: 5
AGE: 44
BIRTHPLACE: England
REP: Kraft-Engel
1 GRAMMY NOMINATION
RELATIONSHIPS: Blue Sky, F. Gary Gray, Paul Greengrass, Doug Liman, George Miller, Charles Stone III, John Woo
BACKGROUND: Trinity College of Music, advertising music, Media Ventures
FAN FAVORITE: Paycheck
TYPECAST IN: Action, animation
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Shrek--263
2. X-Men: The Last Stand--234
3. The Bourne Ultimatum--227
4. Happy Feet--197
5. Ice Age: The Meltdown--195
6. Mr. & Mrs. Smith--186
7. The Bourne Supremacy--176
8. Robots--128
9. The Bourne Identity--121
10. Horton Hears a Who!--117 (3/30/08)

John Powell followed his remarkable 2006 with one of his biggest commercial and critical successes. Though director Paul Greengrass asked Powell to merely rework his Bourne Supremacy music for Bourne Ultimatum, Powell's resulting efforts helped maintain the film's relentless energy and tension, with the end result earning three Oscars for its editing and sound, as well as proving the highest grosser of the series. His other film for 2007, the romantic comedy-drama P.S. I Love You, did decent business and at least demonstrated that Powell can do something besides propulsive action. He already has three films out this year, in wildly different genres -- the disappointing sci-fi action movie Jumper, the moving Iraq War vet drama Stop-Less, and the hugely successful CGI film of Horton Hears a Who -- and he looks to be approaching an Zigman-esque level of output, with a Will Smith superhero comedy, another animated feature, and a Paul Greengrass Iraq War drama on his slate.

WHAT'S NEXT: Bolt, Hancock, Green Zone

4. JAMES NEWTON HOWARD

2007 RANKING: 8
AGE: 56
BIRTHPLACE: Los Angeles, California
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
7 OSCAR NOMINATIONS
1 EMMY, 3 NOMINATIONS
2 GRAMMY NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: The Prince of Tides, The Fugitive, The Sixth Sense, Michael Clayton
RELATIONSHIPS: Michael Hoffman, P.J. Hogan, Lawrence Kasdan, Christopher Nolan, Joe Roth, M. Night Shyamalan, Barry Sonnenfeld
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. I Am Legend--256 (3/30/08)
3. Signs--227
4. King Kong--218
5. Batman Begins--205
6. The Fugitive--183
7. Pretty Woman--178
8. Runaway Bride--152
9. Dinosaur--137
10. My Best Friend's Wedding--126

Like Mark Isham, Howard was insanely prolific in 2007, with six major films in release, and though there were some box-office disappointments in the group, the sextet included a genuine blockbuster as well as a major Oscar contender. Howard's movie year began with writer Scott Frank's directorial debut, The Lookout, and though Howard's effective score was a comparatively minor effort (and, unfortunately, released only as a download), the film was deservedly well reviewed, and demonstrated that despite his A-list status, Howard is still willing to work on a modestly scaled production. He had no films in release during the summer, but made up for it with a string of major releases toward the end of the year, several of them within days of each other. The third film version of Richard Matheson's classic I Am Legend (and the first to use its title) proved to be the biggest smash of the holiday season (though it's not exactly a prototypical holiday film), and Howard's restrained scoring was spotted with admirable discretion. Michael Clatyon never earned the box-office it deserved, but Howard's low-key score, one of his least melodic, earned the composer his seventh Oscar nomination. He had two more pieces of entertaining Oscar bait in theaters, Mike Nichols' Charlie Wilson's War and Denzel Washington's The Great Debaters (sharing the scoring credit with Peter Golub), as well as the satisfying kids fantasy The Water Horse. He began 2008 more modestly with the comedy Mad Money, on which he shared the scoring credit with his friend Martin Davich, but he has three big movies lined up for the rest of the year -- M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, Edward Zwick's WWII drama Defiance, and the Batman sequel The Dark Knight (scored with Hans Zimmer) -- and a new P.J. Hogan comedy for 2009, Confessions of a Shopaholic.

WHAT'S NEXT: The Happening, The Dark Knight, Defiance, Confessions of a Shopaholic

2007 RANKING: 3
AGE: 76
BIRTHPLACE: Long Island, New York
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
5 OSCARS, 45 NOMINATIONS
2 EMMYS, 4 NOMINATIONS
20 GRAMMYS, 59 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, Munich
RELATIONSHIPS: Chris Columbus, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg
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. Revenge of the Sith--380
5. Jurassic Park--357
6. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone--316
7. Attack of the Clones--310
8. Return of the Jedi--309
9. The Empire Strikes Back--290
10. Home Alone--285

This summer's release of the decades-awaited Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will feature the first new Williams score in two-and-a-half years, since his Oscar-nominated Munich. It's hard to know how many more scores Williams plans to write (certainly Spielberg seems nowhere near quitting, and he's a spry 61), but considering he's 11 years past the age most people retire, we're lucky to have any new music from him, and if he decides to finally call it a day, a fourth Indiana Jones seems like a wonderful swan song for America's composer.

WHAT'S NEXT: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2007 RANKING: 2
AGE: 54
BIRTHPLACE: Amarillo, Texas
REP: Kraft-Engel
3 OSCAR NOMINATIONS
1 EMMY, 2 NOMINATIONS
8 GRAMMY NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Good Will Hunting, Chicago
RELATIONSHIPS: Tim Burton, Gus Van Sant
BACKGROUND: Rock singer-songwriter (Oingo Boingo)
FAN FAVORITES: Batman, Edward Scissorhands
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. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory--206
6. Men in Black II--190
7. Mission: Impossible--180
8. Planet of the Apes--179
9. Chicago--170
10. Batman Returns--162

Elfman hasn't had a genuine blockbuster since 2005's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but he remains one of the most popular composers in Hollywood, unusually choosy about his projects and particularly about his director collaborators. Last year's Meet the Robinsons did good business despite its troubled production history, while the war-on-terror thriller The Kingdom was a boxoffice disappointment but gave Elfman the chance to work with a more stark, less orchestral sound. His emphasis on interesting directors dominates his 2008 output, as he scores a new Errol Morris documentary, Guillermo del Toro's sequel to Hellboy, Gus Van Sant's long-awaited Harvey Milk biopic, and the action thriller Wanted, from the director of the Russian Night and Day Watch.

WHAT'S NEXT: Standard Operating Procedure, Wanted, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Milk

2007 RANKING: 1
AGE: 50
BIRTHPLACE: Frankfurt, Germany
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
1 OSCAR, 7 NOMINATIONS
1 GRAMMY, 5 NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Rain Man, Driving Miss Daisy, As Good As It Gets, The Thin Red Line, Gladiator
RELATIONSHIPS: James L. Brooks, Jerry Bruckheimer, Tom Cruise, DreamWorks, Antoine Fuqua, Ron Howard, Penny Marshall, Nancy Meyers, Christopher Nolan, Ridley Scott, Gore Verbinski
BACKGROUND: Keyboardist, pop musician, protege to Stanley Myers, founder of Media Ventures and Remote Control
FAN FAVORITES: Gladiator, The Thin Red Line
TYPECAST IN: Epics, action, Oscar bait, animation
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest--423
2. The Lion King--312
3. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End--309
4. The Da Vinci Code--217
5. Mission: Impossible 2--215
6. Batman Begins--205
7. Pearl Harbor--198
8. Madagascar--193
9. Gladiator--187
10. The Simpsons Movie--182

Zimmer's list of giant hit films got even bigger in 2007, as the third Pirates film, though not the super-duper blockbuster its predecessor was, was merely a mega-blockbuster, surviving harsh reviews to become one of the year's highest grossers. The charming feature version of The Simpsons managed to make major bucks, even though it was essentially a longer and more lavish version of something audiences get for free every week, and Zimmer's score was a fine complement to the work Alf Clausen does for the series. His upcoming projects include a mixture of summer blockbuster, family entertainment and Oscar bait, as he collaborates with James Newton Howard on The Dark Knight, with John Powell on the potential animated sleeper Kung Fu Panda, and scores his third Ron Howard film, the adaptation of the stage hit Frost/Nixon.

WHAT'S NEXT: The Dark Knight, Frost/Nixon, Kung Fu Panda, Madagascar: The Crate Escape, Casi Divas

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