What's a score you wished John Williams did?

[Courtney Sees Ghosts 269]

One of my favorite film score topics is film score what ifs. What would've happened if this composer hadn't quit or was replaced. What would've this score sounded like had the composer not declined due to creative differences? What would it be like if this composer did this score instead of that composer? On the topic of John Williams, there's only very few occasions where John Williams couldn't do a score. None of which was due to him being fired (who's stupid enough to do that?). All these instances were due to timing.

The one I think about is X-Men. Bryan Singer revealed in 2006 that he had offered Williams the gig only for him to decline due to commitments to Saving Private Ryan (at least that's the movie Singer mentioned). Would've been interesting to hear what an X-Men score by John Williams could've sounded like. Would it have been just as iconic as other Marvel movie themes like Spider-Man, The Avengers, or Black Panther? Would he have created leitmotifs for Magneto, Rogue, and Wolverine? Would his theme have been carried through different movies even if he didn't score them? Something to think about.

So my question is what's a score that John Williams almost did would you like to have heard? Or is there just any movie you wanted Williams to do? Did ever want him to score a Star Trek movie? A Pixar movie? Transformers? Just anything you can dream of.

Love to hear y'all's thoughts!

 

[Datameister 2,044]

Yeah, a JW Star Trek score would have been really interesting, especially if he'd made a conscious effort to not sound like Star Wars.

[GerateWohl 4,370]

I remember in the 80s being fairly dissapointed when a Harrison Ford movie came out, that didn't have a John Williams score but even had a synthesizer score like Witness, Frantic or even Bladerunner. But I got over it.

 

Then the obvious misses are the remaining five Harry Potter scores. Apart from that I don't miss John Williams scores for franchises, that he didn't start, even though X-Men might have been a great opportunity.

 

And no matter how great Shores scores for LotR scores are, I remember at the time they came out I really wished, Williams would have written the music. Especially I was kind of disappointed with the villains music in LotR. There I thought, Williams would really have nailed it better than Shore. (probably I am gonna be tarred and feathered here for saying that).

[SF1_freeze 131]

The Harry Potter Scores, especially Goblet of Fire and DH part 2...i think it was rumored JW was pretty close to score these two.

 

Other than that a James Bond score would have really been nice.

 

While i think a LotR JW score would of course have been extremely interesting, Howard Shore did such a perfect job, that i can't think that JW LotR scores would have been better.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,534]

JW was in the frame to score POLTERGEIST. That would have been interesting. I think I heard a rumour, in the dim and distant, that he was considered for ALIEN.

Conversely, he nearly didn't score CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. Can you imagine that?! 

[Faleel 5,353]

Superman II.

[JNHFan2000 2,966]

X-Men would've indeed been cool.

 

Otherwise maybe a James Bond film

[Thor 7,508]

I'm terrible at 'what if' games. Somehow, my mind is wired exclusively towards things that actually exist. But I suppose it would have been interesting to hear some of the scores for projects he was once attached to, but then left for one reason or another. Like HEAVEN'S GATE.

[GerateWohl 4,370]

One film, of which I really wished John Williams had scored it is Ridley Scott's Gladiator.

First, I didn't like Zimmer's score (apart from the song). And secondly, this is a great film in a genre, that has never been touched by Williams and where I am sure, he would have been great. Williams in Rózsa mode. A hybrid of my two favourite composers. Would have been a dream come true.

 

[Thor 7,508]

4 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

One film, of which I really wished John Williams had scored it is Ridley Scott's Gladiator.

First, I didn't like Zimmer's score (apart from the song). And secondly, this is a great film in a genre, that has never been touched by Williams and where I am sure, he would have been great. Williams in Rózsa mode. A hybrid of my two favourite composers. Would have been a dream come true.

 

 

I adore Zimmer's score like there's no tomorrow, and wouldn't want it any other way, but I suppose it would have been interesting. As I touched on in one of the INDY 5 threads,

Spoiler

where he had the CHANCE to write old-school Roman epic music, but didn't,

there haven't been many other opportunities in his life. There's the dream sequence in GIDGET GOES TO ROME, but that's more North in SPARTACUS mode than Rozsa. However, I've always felt his main theme from NONE BUT THE BRAVE contains very Rozsa-esque segments, so there's that. But it's not Roman music.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,534]

1 hour ago, Signals said:

Superman II.

 

Possibly the greatest film score never written. A very sad missed opportunity.

 

 

 

45 minutes ago, Thor said:

 I suppose it would have been interesting to hear some of the scores for projects he was once attached to, but then left for one reason or another. Like HEAVEN'S GATE.

 

JW was in the frame for HEAVEN'S GATE???!!!

Colour me gob-smacked!!!

[GerateWohl 4,370]

11 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

 

Possibly the greatest film score never written.

Listening to the Nuclear Man theme from Superman IV makes me doubt that.

 

But about Gladiator, this was also a very interesting period in Williams work. I am for example not sure if the late 80s Hook/Home Alone period would have been so great for such a score. But really a movie like Gladiator or First Knight is missing in his films, and even the glimpses for these medieval knight movies that we got in Last Crusade make me wish he scored something like this.

[Thor 7,508]

14 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

JW was in the frame for HEAVEN'S GATE???!!!

Colour me gob-smacked!!!

 

He, he. Yeah. He had to decline because he was taking over The Boston Pops at the time. Would have been interesting to hear, but probably not that far removed from some of the other "down-and-dirty" Americana scores he's written.

[filmmusic 1,832]

Wasn't a similar thread somewhere? I remember writing about what films I would like him to have scored.

Anyway, I'll write again:

 

1) a period romantic drama (I know he has written Jane Eyre, but that is a TV movie and doesn't count! )

2) a biblical film

3) a hand-drawn animation film

[Bespin 8,483]

Pirates of the Carribean.

 

The addition of John Williams' orchestral and adventurous style could have created an even more captivating atmosphere for the adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow.

[Thor 7,508]

Just remembered another one of those "almost" situations for JW: 1979's METEOR, which he declined, and it ended up being scored by Larry Rosenthal (the director had previously worked with Williams on THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE). In that case, it's not really that hard to picture how it would have sounded. Some disaster tropes, some sci fi tropes, both of which he did plenty of at the time.

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

Fallout.

[Marian Schedenig 8,200]

LOTR, obviously. I remember reading the book in the 90s, for the second or third time, listening to JW, and wishing for a new film version so that Williams could score it. That was before we got PJ & Shore, of course. A Williams score wouldn't have been as deeply connected to Tolkien's own background material as Shore's, and it wouldn't have been such a distinct and singular standout among his other works as it was for Shore - but musically, it would surely have been something else.

 

5 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

JW was in the frame to score POLTERGEIST. That would have been interesting.

 

Only if Goldsmith got to do E.T. instead! Both are some of their best scores.

 

3 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

Listening to the Nuclear Man theme from Superman IV makes me doubt that.

 

Hey, Nuclear Man rocks!

[Pieter Boelen 740]

The most obvious are the remaining Harry Potter films.

[Jay 37,369]

Kingdom of Heaven

[GerateWohl 4,370]

5 minutes ago, Jay said:

Kingdom of Heaven

I thought about that one as well.

[Richard Penna 3,694]

Chamber of Secrets in its entirety.

 

The fun new set pieces we did get indicate what the entire score could've been like had he not treated the project secondary to CMIYC.

[mrbellamy 6,287]

I remember reading on here that Alejandro Amenábar asked JW to score Agora? A forgotten film but might have been a cool score, if true. 

 

 

 

Also of course he was the #1 choice for Treasure Planet (another 2002!! although I guess he would have been working on it a lot earlier). A beloved JNH but would have been fun to hear JW's. 

[Brónach 1,302]

yeah, Agora. but i used to listen to Mariannelli's score a lot.

 

 

[Richard Penna 3,694]

4 minutes ago, mrbellamy said:

Also of course he was the #1 choice for Treasure Planet (another 2002!! although I guess he would have been working on it a lot earlier). A beloved JNH but would have been fun to hear JW's. 

 

I would prefer to hear what he'd come up with for Treasure Planet over Minority Report, personally.

 

I really like JNH's score but it's fun to imagine, and MR is one of just a few JW scores that I don't think he was totally suited for.

[Edmilson 7,466]

The Potter sequels, obviously. I mean, he didn't do literally anything in 2007 and 2009! He had the time and resources for at least Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince (Deathly Hallows 1 and 2 came out while he was working on Tintin and War Horse, but he'd still would've found time for it). Yet, he was simply forgotten.

 

Whose fault is this? Yates, who thought JW couldn't do a "dark and disturbing" score for his very serious and adult fantasy epic? JKR, who never once voiced gratitude for the greatest film composer of all time writing the classic themes for her work?

[TolkienSS 407]

2 hours ago, Bespin said:

Pirates of the Carribean.

 

The addition of John Williams' orchestral and adventurous style could have created an even more captivating atmosphere for the adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow.

 

To be honest, that one would have had a far better chance of becoming a classic, even more so than any other Superman, Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings films.

[DangerMotif 1,038]

He was offered Batman 1989 and Mission Impossible I think.

And I think he wanted Rogue one and the last 2 potters

[jocores 96]

In fact he refused Mission Impossible because he had to use Schiffrin's theme. I would be interesting to know what he had in mind for the movie.

[Bellosh 3,419]

The Goonies

Mission Impossible 1

Bridge of Spies

 

(for the record I love all those scores as is)

[Alex 2,835]

I remember JW once was listed on IMDB as the composer for Inside Out. That probably was never going to happen, but it would have been interesting.

[Bayesian 1,363]

The film I would have adored to have JW score is Ridley Scott’s forthcoming Napoleon. I’m sure Martin Phipps will do a commendable job, but I do wonder what kind of themes JW would have come up with for this one (assuming he would have wanted the gig in the first place.)

[Edmilson 7,466]

I really would like to see a John Williams MCU score. But that never would've happened, the only traditional composers they allowed in their movies are Silvestri and Elfman, otherwise it's just younger(ish) composers.

[mrbellamy 6,287]

7 hours ago, Edmilson said:

The Potter sequels, obviously. I mean, he didn't do literally anything in 2007 and 2009! He had the time and resources for at least Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince (Deathly Hallows 1 and 2 came out while he was working on Tintin and War Horse, but he'd still would've found time for it). Yet, he was simply forgotten.

 

Whose fault is this? Yates, who thought JW couldn't do a "dark and disturbing" score for his very serious and adult fantasy epic? JKR, who never once voiced gratitude for the greatest film composer of all time writing the classic themes for her work?

 

I remember an interview at the time from Yates that when he came into OOTP, he was nervous, obviously, and basically appealed to the producers and WB to bring a handful of his TV collaborators into production and post-production, particularly Mark Day his editor and Hooper, who had to audition by writing some demos based on the script. 

 

With OOTP, I think it was entirely that the precedent had been set after Williams left and Yates saw it as a vacancy. He wanted to have a homebase of longtime collaborators that felt comfortable while he was working on this giant unwieldy thing, particularly because the way he worked with Hooper started in pre-production, and that's all. I think he would have felt more pressure to rehire JW if he had continued with GOF, and Hooper might have been shit out of luck in that case. But obviously as far as all parties were concerned, Hooper did a fair job on OOTP and he got to stick around for HBP. 

 

Deathly Hallows is what continues to be a bit of a mystery because we know JW very publicly wanted to do it, and Hooper quit after HBP because he was exhausted by the process....unless that was only the official line and he was fired or otherwise pressured out in order to get JW. That's as speculative as anything else. There was an interview where Hooper alluded to hoping Williams would come back. 

 

The only thing Yates ever said about JW was that he would have loved to have JW back and they were in touch but that JW needed a cut earlier than Yates was prepared to give him. I don't think we ever deduced whether he was referring to Part 1, Part 2, or both.

 

But there's never actually been anything from Yates himself about JW "not being able to do dark and disturbing for a serious, adult fantasy epic." I think in fact THAT came from the kinds of things Harry Potter fans used to say all the time to justify why JW wasn't doing the movies anymore, which JWFan reacted against (naturally) and started projecting onto Yates at some point. He basically never said anything about JW except politely that the schedule didn't work. Which more than a decade later everyone still refuses to take at face value lol. I admit it doesn't entirely make sense, at least based on his output between 2009-2011. For all we know it could have been a more personal scheduling conflict. 

 

Complicating things further was a poster on this forum who claimed to have inside info that JK Rowling in fact did not like JW's music and vetoed his return. No idea if that's true. 

[DangerMotif 1,038]

4 minutes ago, mrbellamy said:

Complicating things further was a poster on this forum who claimed to have inside info that JK Rowling in fact did not like JW's music and vetoed his return. No idea if that's true. 

Can someone find a single instance of JK mentioning his music???

[Edmilson 7,466]

I believe the "does JKR hate the JW HP scores and vetoed him on DH or not?" will be one of the greatest mysteries of Williams' career. I don't think we'll ever get a definitive answer unless one of those involved (JW, JKR, Yates, etc) decide to disclose the truth.

[Courtney Sees Ghosts 269]

1 hour ago, Edmilson said:

The Potter sequels, obviously. I mean, he didn't do literally anything in 2007 and 2009! He had the time and resources for at least Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince (Deathly Hallows 1 and 2 came out while he was working on Tintin and War Horse, but he'd still would've found time for it). Yet, he was simply forgotten.

 

Whose fault is this? Yates, who thought JW couldn't do a "dark and disturbing" score for his very serious and adult fantasy epic? JKR, who never once voiced gratitude for the greatest film composer of all time writing the classic themes for her work?

I thought it was Mike Newell (the director of Goblet of Fire) who said Williams couldn't do a dark and disturbing score. Which is ironic considering one of Patrick Doyle's pieces from Goblet is a popular meme now.

[GerateWohl 4,370]

6 hours ago, JNHFan2000 said:

Otherwise maybe a James Bond film

I would have no interest into a JW score for a franchise with a musical identity created by other composers like Bond or MCU. But yeah, X-Men being started Off by Williams, that would have been great.

[TheUlyssesian 2,478]

I think X-Men is beneath Williams to be honest. He shouldn't be scoring a run of the mill trash superhero blockbuster. 

 

X-Men is not terrible but come on, it did not need a Williams score. 

[Thor 7,508]

1 hour ago, DangerMotif said:

He was offered Batman 1989 and Mission Impossible I think.

And I think he wanted Rogue one and the last 2 potters

 

I've never read anything about Williams being in the running for BATMAN. That's surely a rumour. think all the titles you mentioned there are "fake news".

 

He has, however, been offered, and declined, a number of films over the years, backed by more reliable sources. We did a thread on this a few years ago:

 

 

[Courtney Sees Ghosts 269]

6 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

I've never read anything about Williams being in the running for BATMAN. That's surely a rumour. think all the titles you mentioned there are "fake news".

 

He has, however, been offered, and declined, a number of films over the years, backed by more reliable sources. We did a thread on this a few years ago:

 

 

I don't know about him actually being offered, but Danny Elfman has talked about a few times that he had a feeling the producers had a list of composers they wanted to replace him if he ever got fired. But they always seemed more focused on the Prince songs.

4 hours ago, Bespin said:

Pirates of the Carribean.

 

The addition of John Williams' orchestral and adventurous style could have created an even more captivating atmosphere for the adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow.

Probably would've been very similar to John Debney's score for Cutthroat Island, which was a style I think they intentionally tried to avoid. Shame cause that score rules.

As interesting of an idea as this is, I truly cannot picture Pirates' musical identity being done by anyone else besides Hans Zimmer.

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

34 minutes ago, Courtney said:

I don't know about him actually being offered, but Danny Elfman has talked about a few times that he had a feeling the producers had a list of composers they wanted to replace him if he ever got fired. But they always seemed more focused on the Prince songs.

Nah Danny Elfman was just making fake news 

[mrbellamy 6,287]

Danny Elfman's a pretty neurotic guy, he probably thinks they have that list on every movie he's done 

[Loert 2,515]

LOTR, but using the themes written by Shore.

[Bellosh 3,419]

5 minutes ago, Loert said:

LOTR, but using the themes written by Shore.

 

 

 

 

18 hours ago, Joni Wiljami said:

You are all so fucking out of your minds. Bye. For the 100th time. Candle on the cake.

 

[Richard Penna 3,694]

3 hours ago, Courtney said:

I don't know about him actually being offered, but Danny Elfman has talked about a few times that he had a feeling the producers had a list of composers they wanted to replace him if he ever got fired. But they always seemed more focused on the Prince songs.

Probably would've been very similar to John Debney's score for Cutthroat Island, which was a style I think they intentionally tried to avoid. Shame cause that score rules.

As interesting of an idea as this is, I truly cannot picture Pirates' musical identity being done by anyone else besides Hans Zimmer.

 

This is an interesting topic because while all the modern action in the first score I'm not sure about, there are certain elements that Zimmer and Co. got bang on. The theme first introduced in Fog Bound, and Jack's theme as heard in that extended piece in DMC, are properly memorable jaunty pirate themes. Certainly more piratey than Cutthroat Island which has a more straightward adventure flavour.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,534]

JW can't do "dark and disturbing"?

IMAGES,

DRACULA,

THE FURY, 

The Abduction Of Barry,

all say he can.

[crocodile 8,017]

4 hours ago, TheUlyssesian said:

I think X-Men is beneath Williams to be honest. He shouldn't be scoring a run of the mill trash superhero blockbuster. 

 

X-Men is not terrible but come on, it did not need a Williams score. 

Co-composed by Klaus Badelt.

 

Karol

[mrbellamy 6,287]

7 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

JW can't do "dark and disturbing"?

IMAGES,

DRACULA,

THE FURY, 

The Abduction Of Barry,

all say he can.

 

His four 2005 scores alone are as dark and sad (or more) as he would have had to go for the rest of Potter 

[Muad'Dib 1,802]

The Black Cauldron and/or Treasure Planet