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The Eight Richest Movie Score Composers in History


filmmusic

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Genuinely surprised not to see Horner in there, especiallyafter Titanic.

Good point. I'm surprised to see Elfman up so high. But as Stefan said, it might be due to Batman and The Simpsons.

Karol

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TITANIC alone netted 25 Mio. for Horner and that's not counting dozens of other handsomely paid jobs and royalties. The formula they used to calculate this bullshit would make Horner's accountant laugh probably.

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Braveheart did very well for Horner as well, including his royalties from the very popular trance track which followed shortly after the movie. I remember sitting in a taxi and the driver had the ost playing, which he told his wife bought him for Christmas (I spoke to him about the music).

Braveheart was a remarkably popular orchestral score with commercial listeners.

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I don't think Reznor or Daft Punk belong on this list. They are artists who have written for a few films, rather than properly established film composers. That's aside from clearly their fortunes were made from non-film things.

I'm surprised too that Horner isn't there. While he hasn't done many higher profile films, he must've been paid a truckload for the ones he did do.

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I don't think Reznor or Daft Punk belong on this list. They are artists who have written for a few films, rather than properly established film composers. That's aside from clearly their fortunes were made from non-film things.

I'm surprised too that Horner isn't there. While he hasn't done many higher profile films, he must've been paid a truckload for the ones he did do.

I don't think that the article wants to present a list of composers that have earned their money necessarily from film scores.

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I have no idea how they quantified this list.

Under Vangelis they say "...but his earnings from his scores have translated into great investments that have netted him tens and hundreds of millions over the years" as though they're trying to still base it on film scores alone, and Vangelis just has a great investment broker or something. They don't even attempt to clarify or back this up.

But then for Reznor they say "a few of the musicians on this list will seem out of place, and many only have one or two scores to their names, but I felt it was important to include them nonetheless", completely negating that idea and rendering the whole list meaningless.

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Interesting. But in the case of Daft Punk, Raznor and Vangelis, their fortune most likely comes from othe rventures then film scores.

I give you Daft Punk and Raznor. But surely Vangelis' most famous cue is the Chariots of Fire theme? Along with 1492.

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The article lost me when it said Elfman scored Sweeney Todd.

... that, and that Morricone scored Phantom of the Opera...

What's wrong with that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_of_the_Opera_(1998_film)

Oops, I didn't know about that! My bad!

But, given that the guy assigns Sweeney Todd to Elfman, I would not be surprised if it turns out that he was thinking about the Lloyd Webber's musical.

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"The Italian composer has won Oscars for his scores which include music for films like The Phantom of the Opera, and many classic westerns like The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West, A Fistfull of Dollars and more. He is a legend in the industry, the elder statesman of all composers on this list."

Yeah, whoever wrote this tripe hopefully gets hit by Russian tank or something.

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Because it'll run out of gas just after hitting the writer, will be abandoned by its crew and thus will bury the writer immediately after crushing him.

Yeah, technically. So it doesn't count in my Book of Revelations.

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I like how some of you guys assume that just because someone *earned* a great deal of money at one point in time, that they also happened to keep most of it.

Poor financial management, bad luck, philanthropy, drugs and hookers.

Also, just because you were attached to something successful doesn't mean you made tons of money off of it, you could have taken a hit on royalties in favor of more money up front etc.

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But then for Reznor they say "a few of the musicians on this list will seem out of place, and many only have one or two scores to their names, but I felt it was important to include them nonetheless", completely negating that idea and rendering the whole list meaningless.

Exactly. This article tells us nothing that is either relevant or valuable. And the incorrect facts and assumptions, generally poor writing style, and typos don't add much to the guy's credibility. (I especially like the touch at the end, where a missing "M" tells us that Vangelis, for all his hard work, has amassed a grand total of 245 dollars. Guy can't even buy a PS4. . . .)

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