Michael Giacchino's THE BATMAN (2022)

[mstrox 5,015]

I blame the Joker

[Luke Skywalker 1,180]

And those are True CDs or CDRs?

[May the Force be with You 1,679]

49 minutes ago, Luke Skywalker said:

And those are True CDs or CDRs?

CDRs as written in the title of the main page

[Jay 26,023]

58 minutes ago, Luke Skywalker said:

And those are True CDs or CDRs?

 

What, at the Intrada site?  It says CDR on the page

 

"THE BATMAN (CDR) (2 DISCS)"

[Luke Skywalker 1,180]

D'oh i skimmed through the information text without reading the heading/name of the item.

[Max 95]

There's a new interview with Mick Giacchino where he talks about The Batman (among other things). In a nutshell, Mick wrote the Batmobile chase because Michael was busy with Spider-Man, and "Highway to the Anger Zone" on the soundtrack is a combination of two cues. The first cue (0:00-1:34) was written by Michael and is called "If Batmobile Street Could Talk", and the second cue (1:35-5:20) is "Highway to the Anger Zone" and was written by Mick.

 

I'll post the video below, but here's a transcript of Mick talking about the process (I cleaned it up a little):

 

Quote

I had the insane opportunity to score the Batmobile chase. In the past when my dad has asked me to write something for additional cues, it's generally a source cue or like a smaller scene that's maybe 30 seconds or so, and so this was kind of a surprise. They were initially planning on not having any music during the car chase. The music was going to start when the Penguin takes off and says, “Kenzie, get the money” and [the music] was going to end right when Catwoman pulls her visor down. Then it cuts to the shot of the Batmobile on the highway driving and there was going to be nothing -- it was going to be all sound effects.

 

So they had the review of the full film -- their second music review -- and after that my dad and Matt realized, “We need music here.” At that time my dad was recording Spider-Man and Batman back to back. Generally it would take maybe four days to record a full movie with everyone in the same room and all the musicians, but because of COVID restrictions everyone had to be separated into different studios, so it dragged out the process to two weeks for each film. There was literally a month-long period where it was recording Spider-Man and there were two days off -- maybe even one day off -- and then the Batman sessions started in that last week, so there was essentially a month of sessions. That last review had happened right before Spider-Man was starting and my dad didn't really have the time to write [the Batmobile chase] and so he was like, “Hey, do you want to do the Batmobile chase?” And I was like, “You're kidding, right?” Yeah, so no pressure at all.

 

I got the scene and he gave me an overview of like, “All right, Matt really doesn't want any fanfares in this” or “He doesn't want it to feel heroic; this should feel scary. It should feel like Batman's hunting and chasing down the Penguin.” So I did the first pass beforehand and I tried to fit some of the themes in there because I get excited about, like, “Oh my god, I’ll put this fanfare or this kind of heroic moment in there”. And my dad was like, “All right, let's take all that stuff out because this needs to be more scary and more threatening.” So that kind of led to some weird string trills and interjections that were kind of fun.

 

…

 

[Talking about “Highway to the Anger Zone” on the soundtrack] That’s a combination of two cues. The first cue is right when the Batmobile takes off and that was my dad's. That was called -- talk about good name for cue titles, this was a Paul Apelgren one -- “If Batmobile Street Could Talk”. And then the chase was a separate cue. Again, the cut between [the cues] is when Catwoman pulls her visor down and then there's a trumpet rip up and there's a brief second of silence and then it goes into the big statement of the theme and that's when my cue starts.

 

This part starts at 24:24 of the interview:

[Jay 26,023]

Wow!  I never would have suspected that!  Pretty impressive that his cue is one of the highlight tracks that made everyone's short list when they first heard the album.

 

Does the physical CD version's booklet indicate Mick contributed to that track?  Mine still hasn't arrived

[Knight of Ren 152]

That's crazy! It's probably my favorite statement of the Batman theme along with the one in A Bat in the Rafters Pt. 2, and to know it was done by Mick makes me feel he is just not there because of his father, but that he also has quite some talent.

 

I mean, he is imitating his father's scoring style, but there is so much potential in there if he can write a cue with so much energy and excitement, like this one.

[Edmilson 3,495]

Jon Broxton called this track one of the most musically impressive of the score in his review:

 

Quote

The subsequent “Highway to the Anger Zone,” which underscores the phenomenal Batman-Penguin car chase sequence, is brilliant, full of dense and complicated orchestrations, pulsating rhythmic ideas, and some of the score’s most rousing flashes of the Batman motif. Some of the phrasing of the brass in this cue especially appears to be an homage to Elliot Goldenthal’s work on Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, as well as the more flamboyant parts of scores like Interview with the Vampire – it’s just remarkable.

 

[Jay 26,023]

It's also interesting to read how a score that previously took 4 days to record with the LA musicians now took 2 weeks.  I wonder how this affected The Fabelmans score

[Luke Skywalker 1,180]

If joseph williams had followed the steps of his father…

[Romão 1,881]

Truth be told, it is much, much easier to follow the footsteps of Giacchino than John Williams

[Jay 26,023]

After Extinct I was very much looking forward to Mick's next score, now I'm hoping its something where he gets to write action material!

[Jay 26,023]

Does anybody know if there is a retailer one can order a copy of the pressed CD version or am I SOL?