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Movies/projects Williams almost scored


TownerFan

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The "Williams and Meteor" thread gave me this idea. Let's start a list of all movies and projects Williams was originally attached to, but then left for various reasons. Here's the one I know:

California Split (1974 -- scored by Phyllis Shotwell)

Mac Arthur (1977 -- scored by Jerry Goldsmith)

Meteor (1979 -- scored by Laurence Rosenthal)

Quintet (1979 -- scored by Tom Pierson)

Alien (1979 -- scored by Jerry Goldsmith)

Superman II (1980 - scored by Ken Thorne)

Inchon (1981 -- scored by Jerry Goldsmith)

The Black Cauldron (1985 -- scored by Elmer Bernstein)

The Double (1998 -- the movie was never finished)

Bicentennial Man (1999 -- scored by James Horner)

In the non-film works, there's the abandoned opera as requested by Placido Domingo. A libretto was prepared by American novelist/journalist Michael Walsh, but the project never took off.

Anyone knows about something else?

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I remember reading or hearing something about The Deep, eventually scored by John Barry. Can anyone confirm or deny? I also once heard an interview on the radio with Andre Previn, in which he recalled having been approached by one of the studios (presumably Disney?) interested in making a 'sequel' to Fantasia, this time featuring the music of the Beatles (I kid you not) instead of classical favourites. Although Mr. Preview politely declined, he recommended that they speak to John Williams because he thought he would be the best man for the job. I guess that must have been in the late 60s / early 70s?

Also, I remember reading of Williams being attached to The Flintstones movie at some point.

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I also once heard an interview on the radio with Andre Previn, in which he recalled having been approached by one of the studios (presumably Disney?) interested in making a 'sequel' to Fantasia, this time featuring the music of the Beatles (I kid you not) instead of classical favourites. Although Mr. Preview politely declined, he recommended that they speak to John Williams because he thought he would be the best man for the job. I guess that must have been in the late 60s / early 70s?

No, 1989 i think.

One i deeply regretted back then: he was set to score Mike Nichols' WOLF in 1994, but dropped out at the last minute. Morricone was OK, but given DRACULA i guess JW would have hit this one out of the ballpark (it also has Kate Nelligan).

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Yep, he was attached to Mike Nichols' Wolf, I forgot that. The Flinstones should also be right--his name was even in the early teaser posters, if I remember well.

How about The Color Purple?

Apparently he was never set to score it. Quincy Jones was attached to it even before Spielberg came on board, if I remember well (it was said on the DVD featurettes).

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Titanic was never confirmed. I guess he was approached, but he said "No thanks" since the beginning, as it conflicted with his other 1997 assignments.

We should remember he's probably offered a lot of things. I was interested more in films he almost scored, in the sense he was more or less officially attached to, but then bailed out.

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We should remember he's probably offered a lot of things.

The little insider knowledge i have is that till RCP changed the musical landscape, it's been a mutual process of agents courting studios/producers for their clients and vice versa. If a property is hot, like TITANIC or LOTR, it sure made the rounds between all A-listers at the time. There was an interview with the POWDER director who said Williams was interested in scoring it, but only on his conditions (pretty much of the 'no veto' variety), so he decided to go ith Goldsmith who was more pragmatic but a pain-in-the-ass when finally scoring it. :biglaugh:

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Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005 -- scored by Patrick Doyle)

Which I've always found ironical, since Williams stepped in for a sick Doyle in STEPMOM. :)

Yep, he was attached to Mike Nichols' Wolf, I forgot that. The Flinstones should also be right--his name was even in the early teaser posters, if I remember well.

How about The Color Purple?

Apparently he was never set to score it. Quincy Jones was attached to it even before Spielberg came on board, if I remember well (it was said on the DVD featurettes).

Yes, it was a "clause" in the contract since Jones also served as producer on the film.

By the way, some of these titles are completely news to me. I wonder how many of them are for real, and how many have surfaced as rumours over the years.

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You can add Tucker: The Man and His Dream to that list. This was revealed to me by Martin Landau during a party in Hollywood in September 1987 (he was a close friend of my sister's boss, Broadway show producer Mel Howard, and we were celebrating Howard's wife's birthday).

These were more or less his words: "If you like science fiction and film music, you will like John Williams". To which I replied enthusiastically: "Yes, of course!". Then he said: "Well, he is writing the score for my new movie. It's called Tucker". Then I asked him to write down the title of the movie on a paper. He wrote: "Tucker is the name of the film", along with his autograph.

Incidentally, the score to Tucker ended up being composed by my second favorite musician: Joe Jackson.

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Some that I know of:

Treasure Planet (2002) - As far as I know, he was going to score it, but had too many films that year. The film was tracked with Superman, Far and Away, Star Wars and Hook. Would have been a classic.

X-Men (2000) - I remember reading somewhere that he was going to score the first X-Men film but had to decline to other commitments.

I know there's more, but so far I can't remember...

We shouldn't forget sequels, like Jaws III or Jurassic Park III. I'm sure he was offered those.

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I'm sure he would have done a marvellous job on Tucker--a very underrated film, imho.

Another film he was set to score was Clint Eastwood's The Bridges on Madison County (scored by then-usual Eastwood's partner Lennie Niehaus). It would have been nice to see them reunited.

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I guess a rather famous example for that category would be Williams for Titanic (1997)?

I understand Williams' name was even on th early Titanic-posters.

Also on this board someone posted a brief quote from an Interview, that he was to score Hulk (2003) anyone can confirm this?

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We shouldn't forget sequels, like Jaws III or Jurassic Park III. I'm sure he was offered those.

Maybe he saw some dailies from JAWS 3-D and ran as fast as he could.

Another film he was set to score was Clint Eastwood's The Bridges on Madison County (scored by then-usual Eastwood's partner Lennie Niehaus). It would have been nice to see them reunited.

I guess this was only because Spielberg/Amblin at one point were attached to the project. Not that i would have minded a real film composer on this either way.

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Of course, David Yates didn't want him scoring a rough cut (in his words). But then in the liner notes for Part 1, he never asked Williams for Part 2 -- he asked Desplat to return. Looks like Yates is caught in his own lie.

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I try to keep something of a list, but it's natural it'll never be complete with just me doing it:

http://www.rejectedfilmscores.150m.com/list.html

I saw the cardbaord cut-out posters in the theater back then for "Titanic" -- Williams was credited. Other people have cited that, too.

I posted this in another thread here, but might as well do it again:

meteorl.png

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I try to keep something of a list, but it's natural it'll never be complete with just me doing it:

http://www.rejectedf...m.com/list.html

From your site:

Now first off you might have heard the rumor that he did a rejected score for "Tucker: The Man And His Dream" -- never validated though.

I'm responsible for that rumor, since for many years I assumed that Williams had already written the score when Landau told me that he was the composer. Then I realized that that didn't necessarily had to be the case, and that he was just attached to the project and then replaced by Joe Jackson.

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I saw the cardbaord cut-out posters in the theater back then for "Titanic" -- Williams was credited. Other people have cited that, too.

We never found anything on John Williams. There's no record of him at all.

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Agora?

But he was never attached to this one it seems, he said no, or was busy or something.

Apparently Amenábar is a huge Spielberg/Williams fan.

I think I will always wonder about the result of JW scoring a film like this.

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I had an old movie guide that listed 'Music by John Williams' under Lawrence Kasdan's The Big Chill (1983), the movie in which Kevin Costner famously did not appear. Does anyone know if this was likely to have been just a mistake or if Williams was ever attached to the film at any stage? I have never watched the film all the way through but was under the impression that the score consisted only of popular songs.

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Doesn't matter if you've found nothing, I saw it, others saw it. I don't know of a single instance of printed posters and cut-outs for theaters using false composer credits.

Even a "Making of" book for "Titanic" says in September (I assume they meant the year before the film opened) they tried to get Williams. It said he was busing scoring the second Jurassci Park film. But a Billboard magazine issue from July, 1997, has a picture of him conducting what they say is the Lost World score, so that would be before September.

My best speculation is:

Based upon Williams dumping bad films in the past, his agent told his James Cameron had expressed interest. Williams looked at his filmography, saw robot action films and things he'd never had scored, and got iffy about it. Time flew by, he started to wonder if the film might not pan out, and perhaps it was too much for a tragic event. Then, probably around the September time frame, he usurped "Stepmom" from Patrick Doyle, and was suddenly "busy" again, and so his agent at the time made the completely unsurprising choice of sending Horner a copy of the script, since he'd worked before with Cameron.

And, of course, meanwhile, he asked Enya, but she turned it down.

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I had an old movie guide that listed 'Music by John Williams' under Lawrence Kasdan's The Big Chill (1983), the movie in which Kevin Costner famously did not appear. Does anyone know if this was likely to have been just a mistake or if Williams was ever attached to the film at any stage? I have never watched the film all the way through but was under the impression that the score consisted only of popular songs.

this is also mentioned here in the credits:

http://soundtrackcol...hp?movieid=1178

maybe they used some old theme of his?

(and why does it say "from raider of the lost ark"?)

hmmm. I'm starting to believe this is just a mistake due to this I found elsewhere:

"John Williams's rousing but playful music and the imaginative script by BIG CHILL writer Lawrence Kasdan", talking about the score for Raiders.

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Agora?

But he was never attached to this one it seems, he said no, or was busy or something.

Yeah, I think it was an Amenábar's proposition and Williams had to decline it.

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Thanks filmmusic and tharpdevenport, that probably explains it. Do you happen to know in what circumstances the Raiders march was used in The Big Chill? I am curious about it, if not quite curious enough to bother watching the film myself.

:wink:

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I had an old movie guide that listed 'Music by John Williams' under Lawrence Kasdan's The Big Chill (1983), the movie in which Kevin Costner famously did not appear. Does anyone know if this was likely to have been just a mistake or if Williams was ever attached to the film at any stage? I have never watched the film all the way through but was under the impression that the score consisted only of popular songs.

It does.

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Agora?

But he was never attached to this one it seems, he said no, or was busy or something.

Yeah, I think it was an Amenábar's proposition and Williams had to decline it.

I guess a high percentage of projects in Hollywood are (or were, in a different time) offered to Williams, just in case he'd say yes. I don't think we should count those offers, no matter how public, as "almost scored" since Williams was never involved in the project.

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I'm sure he would have done a marvellous job on Tucker--a very underrated film, imho.

Another film he was set to score was Clint Eastwood's The Bridges on Madison County (scored by then-usual Eastwood's partner Lennie Niehaus). It would have been nice to see them reunited.

Early on, the film was to be directed by Spielberg, hence Williams attachment to the project.

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Do you think nowadays he still gets offered high-profile movies?

It would be great that after Tintin, Pixar contacted Williams to do one of their films. After all, they're branching out from the usual Giacchino or Newman by hiring Doyle for Brave--- Hey, maybe Williams can replace him for that! :P

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He's practically retired now. I don't think those playing the Hollywood game even consider him as an option anymore.

Plus, his music is too complex and traditional-oriented to match the average producer's vision of audience demands.

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Any truth in that, or is it just what you would have wanted?

Both. Emmerich had a contract with 20th Century which included a clausule that stated that only JW would be allowed to score his movies. Apparantly after he heard David Arnold's work he replaced Williams' name by Arnold's.

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Doesn't matter if you've found nothing, I saw it, others saw it. I don't know of a single instance of printed posters and cut-outs for theaters using false composer credits.

Even a "Making of" book for "Titanic" says in September (I assume they meant the year before the film opened) they tried to get Williams. It said he was busing scoring the second Jurassci Park film. But a Billboard magazine issue from July, 1997, has a picture of him conducting what they say is the Lost World score, so that would be before September.

My best speculation is:

Based upon Williams dumping bad films in the past, his agent told his James Cameron had expressed interest. Williams looked at his filmography, saw robot action films and things he'd never had scored, and got iffy about it. Time flew by, he started to wonder if the film might not pan out, and perhaps it was too much for a tragic event. Then, probably around the September time frame, he usurped "Stepmom" from Patrick Doyle, and was suddenly "busy" again, and so his agent at the time made the completely unsurprising choice of sending Horner a copy of the script, since he'd worked before with Cameron.

And, of course, meanwhile, he asked Enya, but she turned it down.

You guys talking about Titanic are forgetting the the film was originally intended to come out in the summer of 1997 and was pushed back to December 1997 at the last minute. Horner would have written and recorded the score that spring/summer, not that fall.

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Both. Emmerich had a contract with 20th Century which included a clausule that stated that only JW would be allowed to score his movies. Apparantly after he heard David Arnold's work he replaced Williams' name by Arnold's.

And after he heard Thomas Wanker's work, he replaced Arnold's name. A german filmmaker working in Hollywood should signal a big red sign to film composers.

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I think they had a falling out. I seem to recall reading somewhere that Cameron and Horner had split up after their last film together, and he wasn't going to offer the job to Horner until he heard Braveheart.

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