THE 2008 TOP FORTY COMPOSER COUNTDOWN, PART THREE

First, there was...

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

Now, there's...

2007 RANKING: 21
AGE: 50
BIRTHPLACE: Redbanks, New Jersey
REPRESENTATION: First Artists Management
BACKGROUND: UCLA Music Department (under David Raksin), low-budget features
2 EMMY NOMINATIONS
ONGOING FILMMAKER RELATIONSHIPS: Jon Amiel, Curtis Hanson
FAN FAVORITE: Hellraiser
TYPECAST IN: Horror, thrillers
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Spider-Man 3--336 (U.S. gross in millions)
2. Ghost Rider--115
3. The Grudge--110
4. Entrapment--87
5. The Exorcism of Emily Rose--75
6. Swordfish--69
7. Species--60
8. The Hurricane--50
9. Runaway Jury--49
10. Bandits--41

Young's seemingly enviable assignment to score Spider-Man 3 may have proved to be a mixed blessing for the composer. On the positive side, it was by far the composer's highest grossing film, earning nearly three times as much money as Ghost Rider (his #2), and despite strong competition from Transformers and the Pirates and Shrek sequels (and weak reviews) it proved to be the highest grossing film of 2007. However, Young received a "Score by" rather than the traditional "Music by" credit, with original Spider-Man composer Danny Elfman receiving comparable billing for his themes. Even more damagingly, just as much of Elfman's Spider-Man 2 score was replaced by cues reworked by Young and John Debney, much of Young's S-M 3 was replaced by tracked in cues from the earlier scores as well as reworked cues by Debney and Deborah Lurie. Ghost Rider proved to be a boxoffice hit for Young, despite bad reviews, while his second film for Wonder Boys director Curtis Hanson, the gambling romance Lucky You, was a commercial flop and even its planned score album from Varese Sarabande was canceled. He returned to familiar territory with this year's serial killer thriller Untraceable and the film did only modest business, while the downbeat indie drama Sleepwalking is receiving harsh reviews. If nothing else, Spider-Man 3 should look good on his resume, as long as employers don't look too closely at the credits.

WHAT'S NEXT: A Tale of Two Sisters

2007 RANKING: 13
AGE: 42
BIRTHPLACE: San Diego, California
REP: Kraft-Engel
RELATIONSHIPS: Bryan Singer, Joel Silver
BACKGROUND: USC, film editor
FAN FAVORITE: The Usual Suspects
TYPECAST IN: Superheroes, horror
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. X2--214
2. Superman Returns--200
3. Fantastic Four--154
4. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer--131
5. The Cable Guy--60
6. Gothika--59
7. Halloween H20--55
8. Hide and Seek--50
9. Cellular--32
10. House of Wax--32

The Fantastic Four sequel proved to be one of Ottman's highest grossing films, but despite being less lousy than its predecessor (thanks mostly to the addition of the Silver Surfer), it didn't gross as much. His only other project of 2007 was yet another collaboration with producer Joel Silver, the much-reworked Body Snatchers remake The Invasion, but despite its stellar cast it was a flop. Ottman has now his hands full with one of his most ambitious projects yet, serving as composer and editor on Bryan Singer's thriller about the attempted assassination of Hitler.

WHAT'S NEXT: Valkyrie

2007 RANKING: Not ranked
AGE: 59
BIRTHPLACE: New Rochelle, New York
REP: Kraft-Engel
BACKGROUND: New York University, off-Broadway and Broadway songwriter
8 OSCARS, 15 NOMINATIONS
6 GRAMMYS, 9 NOMINATIONS
1 TONY NOMINATION
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Beauty and the Beast
FAN FAVORITE: Beauty and the Beast
TYPECAST IN: animated musicals
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Aladdin--217
2. Beauty and the Beast--145
3. Pocahontas--141
4. Enchanted--127
5. The Little Mermaid--111
6. The Hunchback of Notre Dame--100
7. Hercules--99
8. The Shaggy Dog--60
9. Home on the Range--49
10. Life with Mikey--12

Menken made a splashy return to big screen fantasy musicals with the deservedly successful Enchanted, for which he deftly paid homage to his own classics like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast while providing a satisfying mixture of orchestral score and wonderful new songs. Three of those songs managed to dominate the Original Song category at this year's Oscars, but despite Menken's outstanding work (with "That's How You Know" ranking among the finest of all Menken songs), the award instead went to the plucky underdog Once. Though he currently has no features lined up, he is developing stage musicals based on two films from the 1990s -- the Whoopi Goldberg smash Sister Act, and the Steve Martin dramedy Leap of Faith.

2007 RANKING: 28
AGE: 54
BIRTHPLACE: Johannesburg, South Africa
REP: Kraft-Engel
BACKGROUND: Rock guitarist for the band Yes, Media Ventures
RELATIONSHIPS: Jerry Bruckheimer, Jon Turtletaub
FAN FAVORITE: Armageddon
TYPECAST IN: Action, interracial youth sports dramas
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. National Treasure: Book of Secrets--217 (as of 3/23/08)
2. Armageddon--201
3. National Treasure--172
4. Bad Boys II--138
5. Remember the Titans--115
6. Enemy of the State--111
7. Gone in 60 Seconds--101
8. Con Air--101
9. Deep Blue Sea--73
10. Coach Carter--66

Rabin has become less prolific of late, but his most recent film, the inevitable National Treasure sequel, has proved to be his biggest hit yet, grossing a whopping $217 million, topping the original's grosses by $45 million. (Despite the film's enormous success, Walt Disney Records released Rabin's score as a download-only). His only other film last year was the unambitious but very amusing Hot Rod, but he has a potentially huge summer comedy this year, the all-star feature version of the classic '60s spy spoof Get Smart.

WHAT'S NEXT: Get Smart

2007 RANKING: 12
AGE: 55
BIRTHPLACE: New York, New York
REP: First Artists Management
1 OSCAR NOMINATION
1 EMMY, 4 NOMINATIONS
2 GRAMMY NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Quiz Show, Crash
RELATIONSHIPS: Paul Haggis, Wayne Kramer, Gavin O'Connor, Frank Darabont, Robert Redford, Gary Fleder
BACKGROUND: Jazz & classical trumpeter (for San Francisco Opera Orchestra, bands), Windham Hill recording artist
FAN FAVORITE: Fly Away Home
TYPECAST IN: Drama
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Save the Last Dance--91
2. Eight Below--81
3. Blade--70
4. Miracle--64
5. Rules of Engagement--61
6. Kiss the Girls--60
7. Invincible--57
8. Don't Say a Word--54
9. Crash--54
10. Kicking & Screaming--52

2007 was a paradoxical year in Mark Isham's career. On the one hand, he was stunningly prolific, with seven films in theaters covering a wide variety of genres, ranging from heavy drama to horror and sci-fi action. Even more impressively, he ended the year with a string of prestigious Oscar bait projects from the directors of such acclaimed films as Ordinary People, Hotel Rwanda and Crash. However, none of the seven films was a true box-office hit (Freedom Writers, on which he shared scoring credit with will.i.am, was his top 2007 grosser with $36 million), and the three prime pieces of Oscar bait -- Lions for Lambs, Reservation Road, In the Valley of Elah -- managed a total of one nomination, for Tommy Lee Jones' searing performance in Elah. Even the most commercially viable project in the group, the Nicolas Cage thriller Next, grossed only $17 million (especially paltry compared to Cage's other spring release, the inexplicable hit Ghost Rider). Artistically, Isham's music for 2007 was impressively electic, with Lions for Lambs proving an especially strong effort. The current trend in sparse scoring (with films like No Country for Old Men, Cloverfield, and I Am Legend) may prove beneficial to Isham, who has shown his willingness to move in a more ambient direction in such projects as Frank Darabont's extremely underrated The Mist. Next up he has the gritty cop drama Pride and Glory, from Miracle director Gavin O'Connor, though studio wrangling has kept the film on the shelf potentially until 2009, and the sports biopic The Express, his fourth film for director Gary Fleder.

WHAT'S NEXT: The Express, Pride and Glory

2007 RANKING: 37
AGE: 52
BIRTHPLACE: New York, New York
REP: First Artists Management
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Fargo, No Country for Old Men
RELATIONSHIPS: Joel & Ethan Coen, Spike Jonze, John Lee Hancock, Bill Condon
BACKGROUND: Harvard (architecture, animation), punk rock
FAN FAVORITE: Fargo
TYPECAST IN: Biopic
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. The General's Daughter--102
2. Conspiracy Theory--75
3. The Rookie--75
4. No Country for Old Men--74 (3/23/08)
5. Three Kings--60
6. A Knight's Tale--55
7. The Jackal--54
8. Doc Hollywood--54
9. Wayne's World 2--47
10. O Brother Where Art Thou--43

Burwell has managed to achieve one of the greatest successes of his career by providing perhaps his briefest and most discreet score, for the Best Picture winner No Country for Old Men, which has also proved to be the Coen brothers' highest grossing film. His score consists entirely of a few drone cues and a rhythmic end title theme, but the careful spotting, combined with Skip Lievsay's expert sound design, made the film a prime example of how the "less is more" approach to sound and music can benefit a film. Burwell has been more prolific than usual lately, and though No Country was his only recent hit, The Hoax, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (on which he replaced Richard Rodney Bennett) and the surprisingly entertaining In Bruges are all well regarded films with smart scores, and he has two more commercial projects lined up -- the Coen brothers comedy-thriller Burn after Reading, teaming Clooney & Pitt, and Spike Jonze's film of Maurice Sendak's classic Where the Wild Things Are.

WHAT'S NEXT: Where the Wild Things Are, Burn after Reading

2007 RANKING: 36
AGE: 45
BIRTHPLACE: Pisa, Italy
REP: Air Edel
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Atonement
1 OSCAR, 2 NOMINATIONS
RELATIONSHIPS: Asif Kasada, Joe Wright, Joel Silver
BACKGROUND: Theater and dance composer, concert composer, European cinema
FAN FAVORITE: Atonement
TYPECAST IN: Arthouse fare
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. V for Vendetta--70
2. Atonement--50 (3/23/08)
3. Pride and Prejudice--38
4. The Brothers Grimm--37
5. The Brave One--36
6. The Return--7
7. I Capture the Castle--1

Though he has yet to have a true box-office smash, Marianelli has managed to make a big splash in Hollywood in only a few years. As soon as last year's Atonement was screened for critics, Marianelli's score became a front runner for the Oscar, with nearly every review commenting on the strength of his music, and particularly the memorable use of the typewriter as a percussion instrument for Marianelli's strong main theme. Two African-themed dramas, Goodbye Bafana and Beyond the Gates, received virtually no U.S. release, but Neil Jordan's Death-Wish-with-pretentions, The Brave One, had a respectable opening and demonstrated the composer's skill with the thriller genre. Next up is a reunion with Atonement director Joe Wright for another Oscar-bait project, The Soloist, as well as the British '60s comedy Hippie Hippie Shake and the drama Far North.

WHAT'S NEXT: The Soloist, Far North, Hippie Hippie Shake

2007 RANKING: 13
AGE: 38
BIRTHPLACE: Fornero, Italy
REP: Greenspan Artist Management
1 OSCAR NOMINATION
2 EMMY NOMINATIONS
RELATIONSHIPS: Wes Craven, Bob Weinstein, Guillermo del Toro, John Moore
BACKGROUND: Yale School of Music, USC (under Jerry Goldsmith)
FAN FAVORITE: I, Robot
TYPECAST IN: Horror, action, sequels
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines--150
2. I, Robot--144
3. Live Free or Die Hard--134
4. Scream--103
5. Scream 2--101
6. Scream 3--89
7. Blade 2--81
8. Underworld: Evolution--62
9. Hellboy--59
10. Red Eye--57

One of the biggest surprises of this year's Oscar nominations was the inclusion of Beltrami's score for 3:10 to Yuma -- not because there's anything wrong with Beltrami's tense, percussive, Morricone-inflected score, but because the film was not ultimately a major contender, and the Academy's Music Branch tends to favor Western scores in a more classic Americana vein. A deserved critical hit, 3:10 didn't even gross enough to make place it among Beltrami's top ten earners, but the credibility that the film's reputation -- as well as its nomination -- give him should help encourage him to turn down projects like Roland Joffe's Captivity (U.S. grosses -- $2 million), though considering his gift for action, it would be a shame to see him move away from projects like the delightful, underrated Live Free or Die Hard.

WHAT'S NEXT: In the Electric Mist

2007 RANKING: 10
AGE: 64
BIRTHPLACE: Los Angeles, California
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
1 OSCAR, 17 NOMINATIONS
2 EMMYS
4 GRAMMYS, 12 NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Awakenings, Seabiscuit
RELATIONSHIPS: Pixar, Jay Roach
BACKGROUND: Nephew of Alfred Newman, popular singer-songwriter-pianist
FAN FAVORITE: The Natural
TYPECAST IN: Comedy, computer animation
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Meet the Fockers--278
2. Monsters Inc.--252
3. Toy Story 2--245
4. Cars--244
5. Toy Story--191
6. Meet the Parents--166
7. A Bug's Life--162
8. Seabiscuit--120
9. Maverick--101
10. Parenthood--100

George Clooney's imminent period football comedy Leatherheads will be the first live action film scored by Newman since 2004's Meet the Fockers, and though its move from late 2007 suggests it may not be a major Oscar contender, the film is likely to benefit from Newman's droll Americana. He will return to animation in 2009 with Disney's musical The Princess and the Frog, from the directors of The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.

WHAT'S NEXT: Leatherheads, The Princess and the Frog

2007 RANKING: 11
AGE: 45
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
1 GRAMMY NOMINATION
BACKGROUND: Child choir singer, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, orchestrator for Stanley Myers, Media Ventures
RELATIONSHIPS: Tony Scott, Andrew Adamson, Dreamworks, Dan Ireland
FAN FAVORITE: The Chronicles of Narnia
TYPECAST IN: Animation
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Shrek 2--436
2. Shrek the Third--320
3. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe--291
4. Shrek--263
5. Enemy of the State--111
6. Spy Kids--111
7. Chicken Run--106
8. Antz--90
9. Man on Fire--77
10. Flushed Away--64

Gregson-Williams had three major films released in 2007, one a boxoffice blockbuster, one a critical smash, and the third a critical and commercial flop. Shrek the Third was his second solo effort in the series (the original Shrek score was a collaboration with John Powell), and though reviews for the film were strongly mixed it proved to be one of the year's highest grossers. On the other end of the feel-good scale, Ben Affleck's directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, earned deservedly strong reviews as well as an Oscar nomination for Amy Ryan's indelible performance, and proved the composer could succeed in a darker vein. The less said about The Number 23 the better, though Gregson-Williams' score was certainly not one of its problems. He continues balancing big and small projects by following this summer's Narnia sequel with an X-Men spinoff, Dan Ireland's indie drama Jolene, and the fantasy G-Force.

WHAT'S NEXT: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Jolene, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, G-Force

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