Film Music Reporter

According to an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Hans Zimmer said at the Ghent Film Festival, where he was attendance for a performance of some of his scores at last night’s World Soundtrack Awards ceremony, that he will be sitting out this year’s Academy Awards competition. The composer mentioned that his decision is partly related to the death of  his longtime publicist Ronni Chasen, to whom the concert was dedicated, but he also mentioned his desire to just focus on his upcoming work (which includes the highly anticipated The Dark Knight Rises). Zimmer has written music for five movies released this year, including Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Kung Fu Panda 2 (co-composed with John Powell), The Dilemma (co-composed with Lorne Balfe), Rango and the upcoming Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, with especially the latter two having been considered serious contenders for the awards race.