Mark Isham has been tapped to score the upcoming sports drama 42. The film is written and directed by Brian Helgeland and stars Chadwick Boseman, Harrison Ford, Christopher Meloni, Brad Beyer, John C. McGinley, Toby Huss and Nicole Beharie. The movie tells the life story of baseball star Jackie Robinson and his history-making signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers under the guidance of team executive Branch Rickey. Legendary Pictures chairman and CEO Thomas Tull (300, Inception) is producing the project. The drama marks Helgeland’s fourth directorial effort for the big screen. The Academy Award-winning screenwriter’s previous films featured scores by Carter Burwell (A Knight’s Tale), Chris Boardman (Payback) and David Torn (The Order). 42 is set to be released on April 12, 2013.

Isham is also returning to score the second season of the ABC hit series Once Upon a Time and also has the feature Upside Down starring Kirsten Dunst and Jim Sturgess coming up. Opening this weekend in limited release is the thriller Stolen starring Nicolas Cage, which the composer also scored.

  1. Mr. Long time Scoring Musician says:

    It is very unfortunate that this film, about a American hero, using an American crew, using
    American Actors, Shot in the South, produced by Legendary Pictures (Warner Bros.), chose to slap American Taxpayers and musicians in the face by recoding the music for this film in London England last week. President Obama expressed strong interest in the film and visiting the set in the South. I wonder how he will react when he finds out that the music score for one of our most significant American Hero’s (and one of his hero’s)was blatantly outsourced to England. And what of the American tax dollars lost because some of the film companies production cost were significantly reduced by American Tax subsidies ( in Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee) A slap in the face to all Americans, particularly African Americans.

  2. sean says:

    It shouldn’t matter where the film music is conducted, are you seriously that nitpicky. London have an excellent orchestra. You will be protesting for a sole domestic release next.

  3. Justin Boggan says:

    TONS of American shot films have recorded overseas or on Canada, for decades. This is not a new practice. The fees in LA are what drove studios overseas, but ther are other factors:

    — The compsoer may chose to work with an overseas orchestra. Isham does have some pull.

    — There may be financing from an overseas company, or co-production from an overseas company, that expresses either in contract or in a verbal agreement, to do the score over there.

    — Every orchestra gives you something another doesn’t, and Isham may have specifically wanted things this orchestra offered him.

    — There’s a deadline and the score needs to be done in a certain window, because of release date, and Isham’s schedule, and the main orchestra that have the players and size needed, may be booked during this window, and the London orchestra may have been the free one.

    And you’re misunderstanding what “outsourcing” is.

    You’ve also misunderstood what subsidizing is. And there’s a difference between state and federal — you didn’t say which, just listed states filmed. And NONE of this or anything else in your post has anything to do with the color of an individule’s skin.

    Obama cares as much about a random film, among hundreds of films being produced, in production, or just coming out from various studios, as he does presiding under the Constitution. In fact, he has nothing to do with this at all; why he was even brought up is odd. Are we going to bring up other administration officials, or Congressmen, regardless of party affiliation?

    If they had promised a local U.S. orchestra the contract, and pulled out unceremouniously, then you’d have a legitimate complain, but even then that’s THERE decision to make, whether you like it or not.

    If they had hired Terence Blanchard to score the film, and then jettisoned him stating it was because he was black, then you’d have a legitimate complaint.

    The real issue here is any state or federal tax payer dollars funding Hollywood films. You need to contact you local Congressman and whomever in regards to state taxes, to complain.

  4. phil says:

    Obama won the election not Bain Capital. American taxpayers subsidized the production of this film to the tune of many millions of dollars. We taxpayers are the co-producers of 42. I believe that it is wrong for this Hollywood company to take those tax rebates to employ musicians overseas.

  5. Justin Boggan says:

    Bain Capital is a company and was not up for election. Four of the main Bain executives are Democrats, by the way. In fact, Romney had nothing to do with Bain after he left, but you wouldn’t know that because you never looked into it, you just look the left-wing talking points as gospel.

    And unless you were paying attenion, the bailout out disaster relief money from Congress to New York after thye hurriance, was stuffed full of pork spending, including funding for algae growers in Hollywood. I’m sure that algae will help the people who are still, even to this day, without power or uninterrupted power, in New York. But, Obama didn’t demand all the pork be removed, and he did sign the bill.

    But, by all means, let’s worry about a film production company’s choice of orchestra, and certainly start blaming people who had nothing to do with it. It makes all the world’s difference.

    Again, Hollywood has been doing this long since you were born. And there’s nothing wrong with it. This isn’t a communist command society, or Hobbes’ Leviathan — people are free to make choices and and companies are not under the despotic thumb of a tyrant. You’re beef is still with which ever Congressmen or state officials that asked for, and signed bills, or personally appropriated and lobbied for this money for Hollywood.

  6. phil says:

    We taxpayers are the co-producers of 42. I believe that it is wrong for this company to take our tax money to employ musicians overseas

  7. Justin Boggan says:

    You/we are co-producing nothing. Once your tax money is taken from you, it is out of your hands.

    If you don’t like that they do that, you need to look more deeply into whom you elect, and once you have the facts, talk to other people about it. Is you candidate some crazy guy who wants to ban smoking in your own house? Probably want to tell other people about it. Is your candidate a guy who says if you failed high school, you get stuck in Iraq? Might want to telll other people about that. Did your candidate say we need to pass a bill longer than the Bible and “War and Peace”, in order to find out what’s in it? You get the idea. In this case, you need to check and see if the person you are voting for has a history, if they are not a new runner, of stuffing pork into bills, or frequently voting for bills full of pork. Such votes are public record.

    Whether the company hires an overseas orchestra with tax money, or through monies from DVD sales and box office take, or product merchandising, they are still going to be using people’s money to pay for this. Hollywood as a whole, is just like any other business in the U.S., they do not print their own money. It comes from somewhere else.

    I understand you don’t like it, but you’ve gotten things seriously jumbled up and leaps of logic that just aren’t so. You’re free to contqact the production agency and complain until you’re blue in the face, but they’ve made a choice, Isham may have made that choice, the choice may have been contractual, and the sessions are done.

  8. phil says:

    If you choose to describe me as someone making leaps of logic, I’m OK with that. I am also allowed to dislike like the law regardless of which politicians voted yes or no. We taxpayers are providing financing for 42. That is what co-producers do. Like other co-producers, I think that money entitles us to make certain demands. Sometimes when people point out what they believe is bad behaviour it can make adifference. I believe that it is wrong for this company to take our tax money to employ musicians overseas.

  9. Justin Boggan says:

    There’s your problem: entitlement. The people you elect to go to Congress are called “elected representatives” for a reason; YOU elect them to represent you, in Congress; they speak on your behalf. If you elect poorly, or you don’t vote at all, you have nobody to blame but yourself. Now this taking into mind that some representative just plain LIE about their intentions, in which case you couldn’t have known, but them it’s your job to vote them out next election. Your their boss, not the other way around.

    If you don’t like what they do with your/our money, you have to vote right. Just saying you’re angry about something and then claiming you have an entitlement to it, is not only forgetting why it happened, but them placing incorrect blame. You can’t solve a problem if you don’t identify it, if you can’t call it by name(s).
    The only things that’s wrong is that the company decided to take the money, rather than seek funding or provide it’s own funding, but once they had it, they can do what ever they want with it, ’cause your representative decided so.

    It’s your civic duty, nay personal responsibility to vote and keep the republic on the right path. If you don’t, well, we get what we’ve had since Geroge Bush, Sr, and it’s tredning worse and worse every year.

    I’m trying to help you, not argue for the sake of being contrary.

    Your next step is to find out exactly what law or Congressional bill did this, then start writing the appropriate officials or representative (or as many representatives as you want, that aren’t in your state) and explain your cause: why this is wrong, why it needs to be changed it repealed, or struck from the local law. Just simply sitting here and saying you think you’re entitled to co-producer and consequently make demands of what they should or should not do with the money, accomplishes nothing and erroneously leads you astry of the causes and your patriotic responsibility.

    Make sure the is polite, cite appropriate information. A letter makes more differences in certain cases than a phone call.

    And if you want other causes, I can provide you with a list oa mile long of wastes of your tax payer, including schrimp on a treadmill study, a $1.2 million dollar robot that folds cloths [poorly], albino squirrel sanctuaries, a nearly $900 billion dollar stimulous buolt into the baseline budget, a study on genital washing in South Africa, etc. you’re probably laughing, but I assure you these are all VERY REAL.

  10. phil says:

    I only get to play a direct role in the election of one President, one Congressman, 2 State Senators (and a similar limitation on the state and city level). I have contacted them about 42.

    My interest here was in sharing information about the off shore scoring of 42 with a group of people interested in the film scoring arts, so they might have an informed reference for this particular film.

    Our tax money was used to send muscian jobs for 42 overseas. I’m just not OK with that and I’m saying so outloud. I encourage others to do likewise. We taxpayers co-produced and co-financed 42. It is wrong for this company to take our tax subsidy money to employ musicians overseas.