ben-hurMarco Beltrami has been hired to score the upcoming epic historical drama Ben-Hur. The film is directed by Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Night Watch, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) and stars Jack Huston as Judah Ben-Hur, Morgan Freeman as Ilderim, Toby Kebbell as Messala, Nazanin Boniadi as Esther and Rodrigo Santoro and as Jesus Christ. Sofia Black D’Elia, Ayelet Zurer, Moises Arias and Pilou Asbæk are co-starring. The movie is based on Lew Wallace’s epic novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of The Christ and follows a falsely accused nobleman who survives years of slavery to take vengeance on his best friend who betrayed him. Keith Clarke (The Way Back) and John Ridley (12 Years a Slave) have written the screenplay. Sean Daniel (The Mummy franchise, Dazed and Confused), Mark Burnett (Son of God, The Bible), Joni Levin (The Way Back) and Duncan Henderson (Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Oblivion) are producing the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and Paramount Pictures production. Ben-Hur is set to be released on Februrary 26, 2016.

Beltrami’s latest project, Fantastic Four, is opening nationwide this coming weekend. The composer has also recently been recording his score for Alex Proyas’ Gods of Egypt in Australia. His other upcoming projects include Hitman: Agent 47, which is set to open on August 21, 2015 and No Escape (previously entitled The Coup), which will be released on August 26, 2016.

  1. Yahzee says:

    …oooh, nice!

  2. Ds says:

    Whaaaat? No, please, no… An epic movie with (most probably) outstanding visuals deserves so much more than sound-design. Unless Marco Beltrami writes a great theme and suddenly learns the meaning of “epic”, it’ll be yet another missed opportunity. I miss big epic scores like Gladiator, Braveheart or King Arthur.

    • Macejko says:

      It takes a special kind of Marco to NOT learn any of those things during that many years of film scoring. Marco Beltrami IS that special kind.
      Joking aside, I might have just puked into my mouth a little. Not even Philip Glass can help this guy.

      • BB says:

        Kkkkkkkkkkkkkk bottleneck many of you two. It’s really amazing how much you two are haters of this guy. If it was Zimmer or some of it creates, they would be jumping up and down. But it is the Beltrami who will do! “No, please do not” hahahaha how you can be so deaf? Suck it!

        • Ds says:

          And yet you spend your time defending him but yet you fail telling us what Beltrami score exactly “stick to the ear” and can be enjoyed outside of the movie. Of course this excludes noisy stuff like The Hurt Locker, or non-thematic generic filler like The Wolverine, Die Hard 5 or WWZ.

          Look, I’m really interested in discovering new composers but never in my life did I feel the need to listen to a Beltrami score after I’ve seen the movie. Never.

          • BB says:

            I argue yes, and proud! After all, there are scores of Beltrami that work yes (and very well) out of the movie! Beltrami will never deliver a pathetic score as Chappie, Man of Steel and many other noises that Remote Control, insist on doing! If you want to be deaf, your problem! I have opened my ears for a long time, and I know that Zimmer and his cronies have no quality!

          • Ds says:

            Hmm BB I asked you the names of some Beltrami scores that work well outside of their movies. You answered me by just saying such scores exist.

            Great. Now, may I know which scores you’re talking about? I’m really interested, because believe it or not I’m not a hater. It’s just that I never had the chance to hear a great score from Beltrami. So: which one did I miss?

          • BB says:

            Ahhhhh! You want names is? Ok. I, Robot, Hellboy, Mimic, 3:10 to Yuma, Blade II, The Giver. Enjoy.

          • Swn says:

            is it too funny that defenders of Beltrami can only name 1 film in last 40 that score was actually good! and giver was not even good! he does all bad scores now!!

          • Ds says:

            Thanks for replying BB. I remember 3:10 To Yuma had nice music, I’ll listen to it again. For the rest, I didn’t hear any of those scores except I Robot, which is not outstanding in my opinion.

        • BB says:

          And The Homesman was not good for you, Swn? A totally organic track, without electronics, with original instruments? The Giver is not good? Listen again

      • Linkword says:

        Macejko you are special kind of idiot! You prefer Zimmer and his company and you don’t know what is good orchestral music…

        • Macejko says:

          And you are a bipolar psychopath in need of a psychiatric attention. Seems far worse to me.

          • Linkword says:

            I want John Williams for composer because he is better than Junkie, Hans and Ramin 🙂

  3. tiago says:

    Not a Beltrami hater, but I think no living composer these days (unless, probably, Williams) could make justice to Rósza’s epic score for the original, one of the greatest of all time.

    But I guess Marco was an ok choice – or, at least, not as disastrous as could’ve been. A few months ago, I read a few rumours that Junkie XL would be the composer…

    • Michael says:

      Rosza’s score wasn’t compared with the ones from the two first adaptations (the ones made in 1907, and 1929), neither the scores for the other two adaptations that came right afterwards (an animated film in 2003, and a miniseries in 2010). So I don’t there must be a comparision when Beltrami’s score comes next year.

  4. Alec says:

    um… what happened to Tom Holkenborg (Junkie XL)?

  5. Bruno Costa says:

    I guess Tom Holkenborg is not scoring “Ben-Hur” and I guess Marco Beltrami is scoring “Ben-Hur”. I was right. In the original, in 1959, it was composed by Miklós Rózsa and it was directed by William Wyler. So, a few years later, a remake it is composed by Marco Beltrami and it is directed by Timur Bekmambetov.

    I decided basically with the composers like Randy Newman, Howard Shore, Alan Silvestri, James Newton Howard, Danny Elfman, David Newman, Elliot Goldenthal, Thomas Newman, Carter Burwell, John Debney, Mark Mancina, Hans Zimmer, Mychael Danna, Marc Shaiman, Rachel Portman, Alexandre Desplat, Harry Gregson-Williams, David Arnold, Terence Blanchard, Clint Mansell, Jeff Beal, John Powell, John Ottman, Marco Beltrami, Michael Giacchino, Brian Tyler and Deborah Lurie. It’s brilliant and awesome.

    I decided with the late composers like Shirley Walker, Arthur Kempel, Basil Poledouris, Michael Kamen and James Horner. So, Walker and Poledouris both born in 1945 and both died in 2006, Kempel died in 2004, Kamen died in 2003 and Horner died in 2015. Easy, isn’t it? I guess.

    • Michael says:

      But 1959’s film is not original. It was the second retelling of Lew Wallace’s book (readaptation=not remake). Even Heston replayed the role in a animated version, and a miniseries was released years ago.

  6. Lee says:

    His Score for ‘Soul Surfer’ is fantastic, so I hope Beltrami brings that side of himself to this. He definitely needs to up his game as he’ll be inevitably compared to Rozsa

  7. Roger says:

    one of the worsts.

  8. Bernd-Helmut Heine says:

    Beltrami would not have been my personal choice for the job, but I think he knows that this could be Oscar material and will deliver the goods…

  9. Felipe Vásquez says:

    I would have love to have Mychael Danna with something like this, but Beltrami is a fine choice. The film itself doesn’t really interest me anyway.

  10. Steve Flower says:

    The new Ben Hur needs a score to compliment the human story ,the visuals and the inescapable religeous subtext. So a quality score that pulls all that together and not fall in to the shadow of Rosza…It has to be the one person who can achieve all of that.Ennio Morricone.
    Was he available? Was he interested ?…Who knows

  11. Doug Reid says:

    I am not a Beltrami fan but his Seventh Son music isn’t bad at all. I think it a huge risk to attempt another Ben Hur at all. The Director and production team have some very high marks to hit and still make a modern movie…with old material…dangerous recipe…especially for Marco. I am afraid that most composers these days are not given the musical freedom to contribute scores that play as significant a role as the “epic” late fifties and early sixties. I hope I am wrong about the success equation…but the chariot race better be up to Furious 7 standards.