legend-of-tarzanHans Zimmer and Rupert Gregson-Williams have taken over scoring duties on the upcoming action adventure The Legend of Tarzan. The film is directed by David Yates (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) and stars Alexander Skarsgård in the title role, as well as Samuel L. Jackson, Margot Robbie, Djimon Hounsou, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent and Christoph Waltz. Adam Cozad (Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit) and Craig Brewer (Footloose, Hustle & Flow) have written the screenplay based on the Tarzan stories created by Edward Burroughs. Jerry Weintraub (Ocean’s trilogy, The Karate Kid) produced the project, alongside David Barron (Harry Potter series, Cinderella), Alan Riche (SouthpawThe Family Man) and Tony Ludwig (Starsky & Hutch). As previously reported, Mario Grigorov was originally scoring the film. The Legend of Tarzan is set to be released on July 1, 2016 by Warner Bros. Pictures. Visit the official movie website for updates.

Zimmer’s upcoming projects also include Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (co-scored with Tom Holkenborg), Gore Verbinski’s A Cure for Wellness, Ron Howard’s Inferno and Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. Gregson-Williams continues to co-score HBO’s Veep and also has the animated feature Open Season: Scared Silly (co-scored with Dominic Lewis) and the Netflix original movie The Do-Over coming up.

  1. josias says:

    I think you mean: “Rupert Gregson-Williams will score The Legend of Tarzan, with about one or two minutes of music written by Hans Zimmer”.

    Also, no word on who will score Fantastic Beasts? As long as Nicholas Hooper stay away from this…

    • ygmmasta says:

      josias: “As long as Nicholas Hooper stay away from this…”

      Are you kidding me? o.O

    • Michael says:

      Why? It’s a different universe, not related to Harry Potter’s world and themes. Hooper wrote some period pieces on OOTP and HBP that show he could write music that will be perfect for the time Fantastic Beasts takes place. Or you prefer Williams’s generic Hollywood bombast of the first two HP scores to comeback?

      • josias says:

        No, I’m not kidding, and yes, I do prefer Williams over Hooper to come back to the Potter universe, although this is highly unlikely. Hooper’s Potter scores were forgettable at best, especially Order of the Phoenix. So, I was hoping for Desplat, but since he would probably been occupied with Rogue One, there’s a lot of better options: John Powell, David Newman, James Newton Howard, Fernando Velázquez, Roque Baños…

        • UnWiZe says:

          “Hooper’s Potter scores were forgettable at best, especially Order of the Phoenix” – WTF?! It’s the worst score in the entire series! It’s boring, not interesting at all. It’s generic tv score with a small orchestra. And Hooper is a tv composer, not much talented man and he hasn’t ability to made score for big budget movie.
          I think Desplat (two blockbusters simultaneously is not the problem for big composer), or maybe Giacchino is the right choice. But i hope Heyman wouldn’t do the same mistake to bring again tv composer to made music for a such big film.

      • Mr. Big says:

        “Or you prefer Williams’s generic Hollywood bombast of the first two HP scores to comeback?”

        Williams’ Potter scores are miles better than Hooper’s dainty and utterly ineffective TV-movie caliber work.

    • Frank says:

      We dont know what happen with Hans Zimmer in this film.

      But, we have been confirmed that James Newton Howard has been chosen to composed ” Fantastic beasts and where to find them”

  2. Ds says:

    Okay, now I’m interested in that one! Cool!

  3. Justin Boggan says:

    This film has officially jumped the Zimmer.

  4. Emcube says:

    So did they just replace Grigorov? I guess they weren’t happy with his score? Because last I heard he had finished composing the score.

  5. BB says:

    So to say that it takes two composers to replace the work of one?

    Ironic if it were not pathetic. Another film that has the rotten finger Zimmer and his minions of Remote Control …

    • Ds says:

      Last movie scored by “Hans Zimmer & Rupert Gregson Williams” was Winter’s Tale, and it sounded nothing like Remote Control. So please chill out before spilling your hatred.

    • Justin Boggan says:

      Well, to be fair, I don’t think there are many scores composer by Zimmer by himself. Most of them he had a co-composer or multiple additional composers. It’s not new.

      • josias says:

        I guess Interstellar was perhaps the last score he did much of the job all by himself. For most of his “big” projects, like his super-hero films, Zimmer apparently only writes a suite with most of the main themes, and then is up to his fellow RC composers to fit this material on the actual movie. Remember that “Hans Sketchbook” track from Man of Steel’s album? That’s probably the only thing he actually wrote for that movie, but the cues as heard on the movie itself were assembled by his large team of additional composers and orchestrators. I’m not a big fan of this approach, sometimes it work, sometimes it doesn’t (like on his super-hero movies, which, with the probable exception of Batman Begins, are not very good scores at all).

        On the last few years, I think Zimmer is happy in lending his name to his fellow RCs, even that his work on those projects was minimal: Chappie, Winter’s Tale, Le Petit Prince, Madagascar, the recent Kung Fu Panda 3 and now this Tarzan movie… Only his name was there, but, in fact, the majority of the music was written by his usual ghost writers.

      • Ds says:

        You really like to see Hans Zimmer as a mean, corrupt and lazy guy, don’t you?

        What about another version of the story? Grigorov delivers an unappealing, dull score. Warner Bros don’t know what to do about it, they go to Zimmer and ask “please can you do something to help us?”.

        Zimmer’s schedule is already full, finishing Inferno and A Cure For Wellness, as well as preparing for his huge European tour. So he just says “You could ask Rupert Gregson-Williams to do it, he’s a great composer and will be able to help you”.

        Warner Bros are not fully convinced because Rupert doesn’t have so much experience with huge blockbusters. So Hans promises he’s going to help Rupert, oversee a little bit and giving ideas.

        Of course people from the marketing department will be happy to put Zimmer’s name on the cover, because it sells better. But Hans and Rupert couldn’t care less about that, because they got the contract, and a great but not well-known composer gets to work on a high profile movie.

        Don’t immediately think Hans is greedy or lazy.

        • Ethan says:

          Well said Ds !

        • josias says:

          That’s it. You nailed it. The same was true for Kung Fu Panda 3, Chappie, Winter’s Tale, a lot of biblical History Channel minisseries… And I’d be happy for them if I didn’t care for most of RC composers, specially those from the new batch (Lorne Balfe, Steve Mazzaro and Andrew Kawczynski, etc).

          I’m not doing this to nitpicking on Zimmer, I’m just saying that that’s the way he and his crew like to work. It’s just their way, and apparently it functions very well, hence the enormous amount of fanboys they have.

          And how do you say Grigorov’s original score was dull and unappealing? Have you heard it? Or at least read someone saying that? Because, on film music, there’s a lot of cases where the rejected score is actually better than the one that ended up at the movie, the most famous example being Troy, where Yared’s original score received much more acclaim than Horner’s (which I also like). On Tarzan’s case, we don’t know whose score is better, Grigorov’s or Gregson-Williams’ (maybe we’ll never know), but let’s not make assumptions before knowing the full story.

          • Ds says:

            josias, I don’t know anything about Grigorov’s score, as much as I don’t know exactly what kind of conversation happened between WB, HZ and RGW. I was just speculating. It’s a possible version of the story, just to enlighten people who immediately see Zimmer as a lazy hack 🙂

          • BB says:

            Yes, “Hans Zimmer schedule is always full.” Let me tell you something: the agenda of Giacchino in 2015, was also full (Tomorrowland, Inside Out and Jurassic World). And he needed some help? No! He made the score Zootopia (which was not good) but he did ALONE! Congratulations, or lack thereof, will be collected by own Giacchino!

            Let’s go back to 1983: James Horner, he had seven jobs that year. SEVEN! And he never needed help to compose!

            Jerry Goldsmith in 1994, had five films to do. He also needed help?

            Hans Zimmer ALWAYS need help on “their” scores. And he is talented? Where?

            Hell, The Cure for Wellness, BvS, and this Legend, will have five or six composers to “help” him. Or rather, do his job! Hans Zimmer is lazy Yes! Always was, always will be!

          • Ds says:

            BB, once again you fail to understand (or at least to read carefully).

            Zimmer didn’t need help. Rupert Gregson-Williams needed help. Zimmer accepted to help him so that he could get the job he would probably never have gotten if someone of Zimmer’s caliber hadn’t backed him.

            Of course afterwards it becomes “music by HZ & RGW” instead of “music by RGW with special thanks to HZ”. But that’s not Zimmer’s choice, that’s just the studio and the label trying to cash on his name.

          • BB says:

            Oh, so Rupert has no caliber? The guy can not make a simple score by itself? The guy needs the help of the “master”? Honestly, I do not want to know! For me, Zimmer remains a fraud. It is a mediocre composer, his minions are mediocre, can not do NOTHING that distinguishes the “style” Zimmer!

          • Ds says:

            Ok, Ok, I got it, you were trolling from the start.

            I didn’t say Rupert has no caliber. I just said that Hollywood studios often prefer big names for scoring blockbusters. WB tried with a relatively unknown composer, they didn’t like the product so they looked for someone else. Having Zimmer overseeing Rupert’s work is certainly very reassuring to them. So now Rupert finally gets to work on a huge project, thanks to Hans’ support. If he delivers, he’ll get more and more project and Hans won’t be needed anymore. That’s the whole point of Remote Control: allow young composers to work on big projects, so they get experience they would never have had on their own.