Lorne Balfe has been hired to score the National Geographic Channel’s first scripted series Genius. The show’s first season is based on Walter Isaacson’s book Einstein: His Life and Universe and stars Geoffrey Rush as Albert Einstein. Ron Howard (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, Backdraft) is directing the first episode of the drama, which chronicles how an imaginative, rebellious patent clerk, who couldn’t get a teaching job or a doctorate, unlocked the mysteries of the atom and the universe. Johnny Flynn co-stars as Einstein in the years before he rose to international attention and acclaim. Noah Pink has adapted Isaacson’s book for the Fox 21 Television production. Ron Howard is also executive producing the project with Brian Grazer (Empire, 24, Inside Man) and Francie Calfo for Imagine Television. Balfe has previously co-scored Howard’s feature The Dilemma with Hans Zimmer and also provided additional music for the director’s Angels & Demons, Frost/Nixon and Rush. Genius is currently shooting in Prague and will air in 2017 on the National Geographic Channel in 171 countries and 45 languages.
Balfe’s upcoming projects also include the animated feature The Lego Batman Movie and the biographical drama Churchill starring Brian Cox. He also scored the action comedy War on Everyone starring Michael Pena & Alexander Skarsgaard, which just opened in the UK and has been picked up for domestic distribution by Saban Films.
