THE 2008 TOP FORTY COMPOSER COUNTDOWN, PART ONE

2007 RANKING: 40
AGE: 41
BIRTHPLACE: London, England
REPRESENTATION: Kraft-Engel
1 EMMY
BACKGROUND: Eton College, Royal College of Music, apprentice to Michael Kamen
ONGOING FILMMAKER RELATIONSHIPS: Roger Kumble, Rodrigo Garcia, Jon Avnet
FAN FAVORITE: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
TYPECAST IN: Comedy
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Charlie's Angels--125 (U.S gross in millions)
2. Miss Congeniality--105
3. Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle--100
4. Blue Streak--68
5. The Count of Monte Cristo--54
6. K-PAX--50
7. The Skeleton Key--47
8. Reign of Fire--43
9. Epic Movie--39
10. Cruel Intentions--38

Edward Shearmur has yet to find a true niche in Hollywood, which at least has kept him from getting typecast, and though last year's projects made it seem as if his star was quickly falling, he now seems to be working harder than ever. His apt parody score was pretty much the only redeeming feature of the ghastly Epic Movie, and though the film did adequate business he might not want to highlight that project on his resume. He scored the high profile TV miniseries The Starter Wife, and wrote offbeat music for the little seen Dedication, which was sort of an indie (and inferior) version of As Good As It Gets. He was replaced on the just-released The Other Boleyn Girl by rising composer Paul Cantelon, but his third film for director Roger Kumble, the Disney comedy College Road Trip, just opened to good business. He has apparently taken Thomas Newman's old spot as director Jon Avnet's favored composer, with two Al Pacino thrillers on the way -- 88 Minutes and Righteous Kill (which pairs Pacino with DeNiro), and makes a return to horror with Passengers, with another regular collaborator, director Rodrigo Garcia.

WHAT'S NEXT: 88 Minutes, Righteous Kill, Passengers

2007 RANKING: Not ranked
AGE: 60
BIRTHPLACE: Paterson, New Jersey
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
BACKGROUND: University of Cincinnati, arranger-songwriter, recording artist, TV composer
RELATIONSHIPS: Rob Cohen
FAN FAVORITE: Gettysburg
TYPECAST IN: Comedy
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. XXX--141
2. The Mask--119
3. Ghostbusters II--112
4. Twins--111
5. Kindergarten Cop--91
6. While You Were Sleeping--81
7. 27 Dresses--75 (as of 3/9/08)
8. The Last of the Mohicans--75
9. Six Days, Seven Nights--74
10. Anaconda--65

Edelman had seemed to virtually disappear from feature scoring in recent years, but last year returned to visibility with two minor comedies that managed to do decent business. As the composer of the hit Beethoven movies, he was a natural choice for the film version of Underdog, and with martial arts features like Dragon, The Quest and Shanghai Noon on his resume, he was an even more apt choice to parody the genre in the Ping Pong comedy Balls of Fury. With this season's surprisingly enjoyable romantic comedy 27 Dresses, he had his first genuine hit in several years, and he returns to the kind of large scale, fantasy adventure scoring that film music fans favor with director Rob Cohen's entry in the Mummy series, Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

WHAT'S NEXT: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

2007 RANKING: 33
AGE: 40
BIRTHPLACE: Germany
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
BACKGROUND: German cinema, Media Ventures
RELATIONSHIPS: Kurt Wimmer, Werner Herzog
FAN FAVORITE: The Time Machine
TYPECAST IN: Action
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl--305
2. Constantine--75
3. Poseidon--60
4. The Time Machine--55
5. TMNT--54
6. The Recruit--52
7. Premonition--47
8. Catwoman--40
9. 6 Blocks--36
10. K19: The Widowmaker--35

Though Badelt was fairly prolific last year, his two most commercial projects -- the nonsensical Sandra Bullock time-jumping thriller Premonition and the CGI update of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles -- were only moderate successes. Werner Herzog's Vietnam docudrama Rescue Dawn earned some strong reviews, especially for its memorable performances, but the list of additional cues in the end credits suggests that the most interesting parts of the score were tracked-in pieces and not Badelt compositions. He has an eclectic group of assignments lined up, though none of them seem like sure-fire commercial prospects, including the long-on-the-shelf film of Elmore Leonard's Killshot.

WHAT'S NEXT: Killshot, Heaven and Earth

2007 RANKING: Not ranked
AGE: 34
BIRTHPLACE: Duisberg, Germany
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
1 EMMY NOMINATION
BACKGROUND: Musician in Germany and Boston, music studies at Berklee College of Music, Media Ventures, additional composer for Klaus Badelt
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Open Season--84
2. Blade: Trinity--52
3. Mr. Brooks--28

Djawadi is one of the latest composers from the Media Ventures stable to garner A-list feature assignments, though his most acclaimed work to date has been his Emmy-nominated music for Prison Break. He collaborated with Klaus Badelt on the score for the Africa-set drama Beat the Drum, and though this melodic work was one of the most satisfying efforts for either composer, the film failed to receive a U.S. theatrical release and the music is more easily found on the Varese Sarabande score CD. His score for the guilty pleasure thriller Mr. Brooks failed to bring tension to that convoluted narrative, but Djawadi has two major projects on the horizon -- the animated Fly Me to the Moon and one of the summer's highest-profile films, the feature version of the superhero Iron Man, featuring an absurdly overqualified cast (Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, Terence Howard).

WHAT'S NEXT: The Iron Man, Fly Me to the Moon

2007 RANKING: 15
AGE: 55
BIRTHPLACE: Buenos Aires, Argentina
REP: First Artists Management
2 OSCARS
1 GRAMMY NOMINATION
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Brokeback Mountain, Babel
BACKGROUND: South American rock composer/producer
RELATIONSHIPS: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
FAN FAVORITE: The Motorcycle Diaries
TYPECAST IN: Heavy drama
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Brokeback Mountain--82
2. Babel--34
3. North Country--18
4. The Motorcycle Diaries--16
5. 21 Grams--16
6. Amores Perros--5
7. Things We Lost in the Fire--3

With his back-to-back Original Score Oscars for Brokeback Mountain and Babel, one would think that, if he wanted to, Santaolalla could corner the market on score assignments for Oscar-bait dramas, but the composer, who is more active in the recording industry than in Hollywood, seems to have other priorities, and his only recent project, Suzanne Bier's skilled but poor-grossing drama Things We Lost in the Fire, featured only themes by the composer, with the score proper being composed by Bier's usual composer Johan Soderqvist. He is reportedly set to score the Josh Hartnett drama I Come with the Rain, but though he's also been announced to score the film version of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, from his Motorcycle Diaries director Walter Salles, that film has yet to go into production.

WHAT'S NEXT: I Come with the Rain
 

2007 RANKING: 34
AGE: 54
BIRTHPLACE: Uddingston, Scotland
REP: Air-Edel
2 OSCAR NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Sense and Sensibility, Gosford Park
RELATIONSHIPS: Kenneth Branagh, Regis Wargnier, Emma Thompson
BACKGROUND: Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, actor, stage composer
FAN FAVORITES: Henry V, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
TYPECAST IN: Youthful fantasy
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire--289
2. Eragon--74
3. Bridget Jones's Diary--71
4. Nanny McPhee--47
5. Sense and Sensibility--43
6. Gosford Park--41
7. Secondhand Lions--41
8. Donnie Brasco--41
8. Dead Again--38
10. Carlito's Way--36

His ongoing collaboration with director Kenneth Branagh resulted in two varied new scores in 2007, but the film version of As You Like It (with one of Doyle's loveliest scores yet) ultimately premiered on HBO, bypassing U.S. theaters entirely, and the unsatisfying remake of Sleuth (whose minimalist score was a far cry from John Addison's delightful pastiche for the original) made little impression upon its release. The enormous success of the Doyle-scored fourth Harry Potter, as well as the decent grosses for Eragon, have associated Doyle with juvenile fantasy adventure, and last year's surprisingly enjoyable The Last Legion will soon be followed by the Romancing-the-Stone-for-little-girls Nim's Island.
 
WHAT'S NEXT: Nim's Island,

2007 RANKING: 31
AGE: 54
BIRTHPLACE: Los Angeles, California
REP: First Artists Management
1 OSCAR NOMINATION
RELATIONSHIPS: Brian Levant, Danny DeVito, Stephen Herek, Eddie Murphy
BACKGROUND: Son of Alfred Newman, studio musician, low-budget films
FAN FAVORITE: Galaxy Quest
TYPECAST IN: Low comedy
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Ice Age--176
2. Scooby-Doo--153
3. The Flintstones--130
4. The Nutty Professor--128
5. Nutty Professor II: The Klumps--123
6. Dr. Dolittle 2--112
7. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days--105
8. Daddy Day Care--104
9. The Cat in the Hat--100
10. Norbit--95

Despite the impressive number of hits on his resume, Newman doesn't seem as prolific as you might expect. It may be a factor that two of the directors Newman works with regularly -- Danny DeVito and Stephen Herek -- are themselves not nearly as prolific as they used to be. The large number of hit Eddie Murphy vehicles Newman has scored, including 2007's much-derided Norbit -- has led to Newman becoming a niche composer for African-American comedy, such as the recent Martin Lawrence vehicle Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins. At least film music fans can appreciate the recent surge in Newman score CD releases, including Throw Momma from the Train, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, Matilda, and a planned release of The Runestone.

2007 RANKING: 26
AGE: 43
BIRTHPLACE: Scotland
REP: First Artists Management
1 EMMY NOMINATION
BEST PICTURE NOMINEE: Sideways
RELATIONSHIPS: Alexander Payne, Richard Shepard
BACKGROUND: Self-taught musician, stage composer
FAN FAVORITE: Election
TYPECAST IN: Comedy, comedy, and more comedy
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Wedding Crashers--209
2. Freaky Friday--110
3. Legally Blonde--90
4. Legally Blonde 2: Red White & Blonde--89
5. Failure to Launch--88
6. Mean Girls--86
7. Sideways--71
8. About Schmidt--64
9. Just Like Heaven--48
10. Kate & Leopold--46

Lately, Rolfe Kent has tended to avoid the overtly commercial projects that helped make him one of the top names in comedy scoring, and on his one big budget comedy of 2007, Fred Claus, he was ultimately replaced by Christophe Beck and a lot of temp track cues. His strongest collaborator, Oscar-winner Alexander Payne, hasn't made a film since 2004's Sideways, so Kent has been working with other writer-directors who aren't quite at Payne's level, giving Mike Binder's Reign Over Me a score with welcome emotional restraint, and providing a somewhat James Bond-ian sound for Richard Shepard's disappointingly bland dark comedy The Hunting Party. His next film is a comedy-drama about Iraq War vets, from the writer-director of The Illusionist.

WHAT'S NEXT: The Lucky Ones

2007 RANKING: 25
AGE: 36
BIRTHPLACE: Montreal, Canada
REP: Kraft-Engel
1 EMMY, 2 NOMINATIONS
RELATIONSHIPS: Audrey Wells, Steven Brill
BACKGROUND: USC film scoring program (under Jerry Goldsmith), TV composer
FAN FAVORITE: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
TYPECAST IN: Youth/family comedy
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Cheaper by the Dozen--137
2. American Wedding--104
3. The Pink Panther--82
4. Garfield--75
5. Fred Claus--71
6. Bring It On--68
7. Without a Paddle--58
8. Just Married--56
9. Yours, Mine & Ours--53
10. A Cinderella Story--51

For a composer who for too long has been typecast in comedies, Beck managed to vary his genres in 2007, though the most satisfying score of the batch, for the fantasy adventure The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, was for a film that was as forgettable as its unwieldy title. His highest grosser of the year was the high concept comedy Fred Claus, but despite its all-star cast and easily sellable premise, the film did only moderate business in relation to its budget, and the music in the film was a typical modern temp track-laden mess, with major scenes scored with Alan Silvestri's Mouse Hunt. He also scored one of the year's worst films, the creepy relationship farce License to Wed, but he managed to maintain his indie cred with Mike White's Year of the Dog and the long-delayed Charlie Bartlett, which finally reached theaters mere weeks ago. He has a large number of comedy projects lined up, including the Owen Wilson vehicle Drillbit Taylor (the latest from the Judd Apatow comedy factory) and the Steve Martin Pink Panther sequel.

WHAT'S NEXT: Drillbit Taylor, Phoebe in Wonderland, All about Steve, Pink Panther 2

2007 RANKING: 22
AGE: 45
BIRTHPLACE: Luton, England
REP: First Artists Management
1 GRAMMY, 2 NOMINATIONS
RELATIONSHIPS: Scott Rudin, Eon Productions, John Singleton, Michael Apted, Edgar Wright
BACKGROUND: Pop music producer
FAN FAVORITES: Stargate, Casino Royale
TYPECAST IN: Action
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Independence Day--306
2. Casino Royale--167
3. Die Another Day--160
4. Godzilla--136
5. 2 Fast 2 Furious--127
6. The World Is Not Enough--126
7. Tomorrow Never Dies--125
8. Four Brothers--74
9. Stargate--71
10. Shaft--70

Casino Royale was the highest grossing film of the James Bond series and earned an impressive number of BAFTA nominations, with Arnold even earning a Grammy nomination for its song "You Know My Name." Despite this well deserved success, his profile in Hollywood hasn't increased appreciably, and his feature output in 2007 consisted of the clever British cop parody Hot Fuzz and Michael Apted's historical docudrama Amazing Grace (which gave Arnold a nice opportunity to work outside his usual modern idiom). He has his fifth James Bond feature lined up, the distressingly titled Quantum of Solace (I know, the title comes from Ian Fleming, but still...), and he is reportedly signed to score the final film in the Narnia trilogy, for director Michael Apted, which is not expected in theaters until 2010.

WHAT'S NEXT: Quantum of Solace

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