Sounds sort of like a situation similar to Howard Blake's rejection from "Agatha" - a composer being criticized by the top for his/her music being "too good" or "too beautiful." I'm sure both the studio and Gary Ross aren't thrilled that this is out of the bag & it makes me wonder how many rejections don't leak.
This is Elfman's first confirmed 100% rejection, right? I know his original score for "The Wolfman" was rejected, then the second score was rejected and Elfman's orchestrator came back to re-arrange Elfman's score for a re-edit of the film. There is a rumor that Elfman was rejected from "Gattaca" but as far as I know that's just talk.
What I got from that short interview was that Ross wasn't comfortable with the approach Elfman was taking. So he instead booted Elfman off before the music reached the final stages of the scoring process. Elfman, Burnett, Arcade Fire were probably producing demos at that point anyway. I'm not saying that's what happen, but that's the impression I'm getting from Burnett. He seems bummed that they weren't able to explore what Elfman was trying achieve with the score. Maybe someday Elfman can shed some light on this.
And I have to agree with Burnett on that. I have a feeling that this score would've been very unique from Elfman's other scores and the final product. Even though I have yet to see both Hunger Games movies. But it's a shame it never worked out b/c Ross was a control freak.
Well, there's still no confirmation of whether it was recorded. As I recall, the score had been written, as Bartek had said, and was scheduled to start recording in November, but then the change in composers was reported. We still don't know if any of it went to the orchestra phase.
But we do know from the Elfman box, that he does do demos, so I wiuld guess there's a few demo cues in his collection.
