ASCAP has announced the winners of the 2020 ASCAP Screen Music Awards, recognizing its top film, television and video game composers. The accolades will take place with the hashtag #ASCAPAwards on ASCAP’s Facebook, Twitter, and on Instagram @ASCAP and @ASCAPScreen. Each winner will be honored in a post that enables fans, friends and peers to join in congratulating the music creators that bring their favorite onscreen entertainment to life. This year’s Top Box Office Film honor went to Hans Zimmer for The Lion King remake. Siddhartha Khosla won Top Network Series award for NBC’s This Is Us, and Ruth Barrett took home the Top Cable Series honor for her score to the British series Victoria. David Vanacore was the top winner in the Most Performed Themes and Underscore category.
The ASCAP Composers’ Choice Awards, voted on exclusively by the ASCAP composer and songwriter community, are presented to John Powell for Film Score of the Year for How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World; to Bear McCreary for TV Composer of the Year; and to Gordy Haab for Video Game Score of the Year for his work on Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order. Haab, McCreary and Powell will all thank their peers by video on @ASCAP social media.
Other winners in the Top Box Office category are composers Bear McCreary (Godzilla: King of the Monsters), Benjamin Wallfisch (It Chapter Two, Shazam!), Buck Sanders & Marco Beltrami (Ford v Ferrari), Geoff Zanelli (Maleficent: Mistress of Evil), Henry Jackman (Jumanji: The Next Level, Pokémon Detective Pikachu), John Lunn (Downton Abbey), John Powell (How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World), Joseph Bishara (Annabelle Comes Home), Jaeil Jung (Parasite), Lorne Balfe (Gemini Man), Matthew Margeson (Rocketman), Michael Abels (Us), Michael Giacchino (Spider-Man: Far From Home), Nathan Johnson (Knives Out), Pinar Toprak (Captain Marvel), Rupert Gregson-Williams (Abominable), Tom Holkenborg (Alita: Battle Angel, Terminator: Dark Fate) and Varqa Buehrer (Better Days). Click here for all the other winners.
On June 25, ASCAP will also host special programming on ASCAP Experience: Home Edition with two of its top 2020 Screen Awards winners: Maverick: Hans Zimmer in Conversation with Mitchell Leib, Walt Disney Studios’ head of music; and This Is Us: A Conversation with Siddhartha Khosla moderated by Chris Sullivan, who plays Toby on This Is Us and is also a musician/singer-songwriter.
Yes, let’s award Hans Zimmer for writing the same score twice.