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John Powell's LOCKED DOWN (2021)


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John Powell Scoring Doug Liman’s ‘Locked Down’

Composer John Powell (How to Train Your Dragon, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Happy Feet, X-Men: The Last Stand, Shrek, Chicken Run) is reteaming with director Doug Liman on the upcoming romantic comedy/heist movie Locked Down. The film stars Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor as a couple who find life has other plans when they are stuck at home in a mandatory lockdown and call a truce to attempt a high-risk, high-stakes jewellery heist at one of the world’s most exclusive department store, Harrods. Ben Stiller, Stephen Merchant, Lucy Boynton, Ben Kingsley, Mindy Kaling and Dule Hill are co-starring. Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders, Eastern Promises) wrote the screenplay. P.J. van Sandwijk (Citizen K, American Dharma), Alison Winter (Chaos Walking) and Michael Lesslie (The Little Drummer Girl) are producing the AGC Studios production. Powell has previously collaborated with Liman (Edge of Tomorrow, Go) on the features The Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Jumper and Fair Game. Locked Down will premiere next month exclusively on HBO Max.

 

http://filmmusicreporter.com/2020/12/30/john-powell-scoring-doug-limans-locked-down/

 

 

Here's the trailer!

 

 

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No OST album on AU or NZ iTunes, so it's not dropping this Friday.

 

Hopefully it gets an OST album next Friday

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At some point, I hope we get to hear Powell do "edgier" stuff again, even if he's said he won't. But in the meantime, I take anything I can get in terms of live action stuff. So I'll definitely be checking this out.

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Do you imagine this score was all made with samples? He tends to share on his Instagram if he’s recording new things with an orchestra he admires. But perhaps he wanted to surprise people (?) Looking forward to this regardless.

 

Sound-wise Im imagining an interesting blend of some quieter moments of “Hancock” with some of the funk of “Be Cool”. Perhaps a helping of “Paycheck” in there too.

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There's no way a full size LA orchestra convened to record this, and I doubt an overseas one was used either. It's gonna be either all synth, or mostly synth with small ensemble like Mandalorian season 2

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It will be cool to hear him revisit that Bourne 1 style (if he goes that route) after 20 or so years. I know he tried to distance himself from that sound in the following years since everyone ripped it off. 

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My bet is on jazz, or some small acoustic ensemble (pianos and woodwinds, perhaps). Not expecting it to light my fire, but who knows?

 

As for the Bourne sound, I doubt we will be hearing it, or anything similar, anytime soon. He did go back to it for JASON BOURNE (2016), but that was a huge disappointment, score-wise (loved the film, though). Not so strange, perhaps, since it was after his statement about not scoring films with violence anymore. It was probably more out of obligation to the series, and thus bereft of inspiration. Plus I'm not sure what Powell did and what Buckley did.

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10 hours ago, Jay said:

Maybe it'll be something completely new from him, like his version of a Ocean's score or something lol.  Who knows!

 

We've already had that!

 

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Can't remember a thing from the Edge Of Tomorrow score. And Christophe Beck is usually pretty good. Would have been a great one if Powell had worked on it...though I sense it's not the type of film he wants to work on any more.

 

Watched Paycheck for the first time in years tonight. 2003-2005 is my favourite period of Powell - massively enjoyable scores that are miles better than the film's they accompany: Cody Banks, The Italian Job, Paycheck, Mr. & Mrs. Smith.... 👌🏻

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No update on the OST?

Is it already released in NZ and AU area?

 

Well,

i think i can assume that JP’s contribution is so limited that it cant guarantee an ost release.

Even JP didnt give a gradual teasing/sneak peek like he always did when he scored a movie.

 

But i’d love to be proven wrong.

 

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No OST album up on iTunes NZ/AU

 

Oh well

 

 

 

I finally found one review that actually mentions the score

 

Quote

Digressing, as Paxton and Linda start to emerge from their relationship funk, they have to actually decide if they want to go through with stealing the diamond on the spot while carrying out their respective jobs. Some aggressive music from regular Doug Liman composer John Powell adds to that suspense, whereas the planning itself of the operation is anything but formulaic for the genre yet still more than cinematic enough to work. 

 

https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2021/01/movie-review-locked-down-2021/

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Saw the movie (well skimmed it actually) 

 

I mean why even bother hiring John Powell in the first place.

 

Little to none music for the first 3/4 of the movie, only a classical,piano score.

Only when it enters the heist scene does the music start to become prominent.

Even that still a rather copy-paste job. 

( but there is one or two passage that i truly expected to play longer and build to something big, but no, it didnt happen :( )

And no, the end credits is not where the jewel is. Only a song, and eventhough there is another classical, piano music at the end, it's still uninspired

 

Again, why bother?

At least it gives JP a fresh money.

 

 

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Well it looks like it,

 

Anyway, explaination from John Powell:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CKCBgRBhMS0/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

 

Whilst “Lockdown” has been a way of life for us all recently, a few weeks ago it became a rather wonderful reunion for me. When Doug Liman, who hired me all those years ago for The Bourne Identity, asked if I could jump on board a ridiculously fast scheduled production called “Lockdown” I was delighted to oblige. Doug and his team had created, shot, and edited the film in no time at all, so part of the attraction was to join them in their madness—to see if I could score the film as quickly and with the same made-at-home-during-a-pandemic energy. 
In the end, I didn’t need to write much—between the cues near the end and a few dodgy “interpretations” of Beethoven piano concertos, we were done as quickly as you could say “Melania, where’s my Twitter account?!”

It was fun returning to Doug’s totally bonkers approach to filmmaking, reminding me that the phrase “Actually, I don’t think we need any music until reel 6!” can sometimes be the greatest news a composer can hear all day 🤓

Streaming on HBO Max today!

#JohnPowell #soundtrack #lockdown#lockeddown @hbomax 

Score Composed & Produced by @johnj_powell 
Additional Music & Arrangements by @batusener 
Score Engineer @johnmichaelcaldwell 
Recorded & Mixed @5ca

 

 

 

 

 

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24 minutes ago, PrayodiBA said:

“Actually, I don’t think we need any music until reel 6!” can sometimes be the greatest news a composer can hear all day 🤓

 

:lol: classic Powell

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36 minutes ago, Jay said:

With so little music needed he still brought on Batu Sener to compose music too?

 

This was my immediate thought too! :D

 

Anyway, his post answers everything we could possibly need to know about the score and the (lack of) album. I'm intriguted to watch the film.

 

Did anyone really expect anything from this?

 

On 1/7/2021 at 9:08 PM, Anthony said:

Aside from big names, the trailer does give the impression this is very low-budget. I'm not expecting much from the music, if it's released at all.

 

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I wasn't expecting the score to be a career highlight for Powell, but I wasn't assuming there'd be so little music it wouldn't get an OST album anyway

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Makes me wonder if this was the score Powell was referring to in the talk he gave just before Christmas... given how little music there was, it seems surprising that he'd have found writing it as hard as his comments seemed to imply!

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According to you "He mentioned a few times that he's working on a score which he suggested was quite a challenging assignment and the director was being very particular about what he wanted. Sounds very interesting, but he didn't give any hints as to what the film was."

 

That indicates the assignment was challenging, not the writing, which lines up with today's comments about the fast schedule.

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5 minutes ago, Jay said:

According to you "He mentioned a few times that he's working on a score which he suggested was quite a challenging assignment and the director was being very particular about what he wanted. Sounds very interesting, but he didn't give any hints as to what the film was."

 

That indicates the assignment was challenging, not the writing, which lines up with today's comments about the fast schedule.

Blimey, it's like PMQs... my words are coming back to haunt me. From what I recall, he said he had to re-write a cue a few times and was struggling to give the director what he wanted. So I did mean assignment in a broader sense but he was clearly finding the demands of what the director wanted to be difficult. Still, could well be it. If there's not much music, the director may well be more demanding to ensure that those moments that are scored are exactly what they wanted.

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1 hour ago, Jay said:

Then it would only say "Arrangements by" but he clearly said "Additional Music" too

 

True. But I've seen "Additional Music" refer to things that aren't entirely original before. Who knows! Lol.

 

Maybe we can dig through ASCAP or something and figure it out at some point.

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Worked for me

 

https://www.facebook.com/johnpowellmusic/posts/2785550971668187?comment_id=2785564235000194&reply_comment_id=2785565608333390

 

I just clicked the "10h" under his comment and then copied the URL and pasted it here

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Well, we watched the film on Friday night.  I'm surprised Liman bothered with someone as expensive as Powell, for what the movie needs ; there's only 18 minutes of score in the entire 2 hour movie, and about a third of that is classical pastiche (or straight re-recordings of classical pieces, I wouldn't know) which is sort of quasi-source at times. The truly original score is basic tension building stuff, with a bit of percussion and some distorted guitar, and then a wacky end credits cue under footage of Chiwetel baking bread

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