Hans Zimmer takes over as music composer for No Time To Die

By: Greg Bechtloff

Published:
2020-01-07

The new year has brought a major and exciting piece of news regarding the upcoming James Bond film No Time To Die due for a worldwide release in April 2020.

Legendary composer Hans Zimmer will provide the score for the brand new 007 film. Zimmer is the Oscar® winning composer who has provided the scores for such event films as Gladiator (2000), The Dark Knight (2008), Inception (2010) and Dunkirk (2017).

Zimmer replaces the originally announced composer on the film, Dan Romer.

This is the first time that a composer has been replaced on a James Bond film. It is however NOT an unusual thing for big films.

Sometimes the music that one composer creates for a film just does not seem to work with the images. The composer has certain ideas that he wants to pursue that may run counter to what the director, producer and studio had in mind.

The reason to part ways on a project may be friendly or they may not. But it does happen every now and again.

Past James Bond composers have had their share of “creative differences” and have left a film. John Barry was originally slated to do The Bodyguard and The Prince of Tides for instance.

• David Arnold was going to score Mel Gibson's American Revolution film The Patriot but was replaced by John Williams.

• Michel Legrand did a score for Sean Connery's Robin Hood film Robin and Marian. The decision was made to not utilize Legrand’s music and John Barry stepped in to fix it.

Hans Zimmer actually did a similar rescue job a few years ago when he was brought in to fix the score to Blade Runner 2049 (2017). This is almost analogous to the what has just happened with No Time To Die.

The original composer’s work just did not seem to work. On the Blade Runner sequel the music had to pay homage to the memorable Vangelis score from the original movie. But it also had to move things forward and be its own thing. A very hard balancing act to pull off.

This is quite similar to James Bond films. The composer has to work within the sound that John Barry created. He also though has to move it forward and not just be a pastiche.

This is one of the big reasons that many fans have issues with Eric Serra’s score for GoldenEye (1995). They feel it strayed too far from the Barry mold. The filmmakers were aware of this and did bring in another composer to fix the major action piece of the film, that tank chase in Russia.

Bringing this all back to Hans Zimmer, its very clear that we are in for something great. The thought of Hans Zimmer and his team bringing a new sound to the Bond series is something to look forward to.

If you really want to drill down you can chew on this. Hans Zimmer scored The Rock (1996) which some consider to be a secret James Bond film. There is a school of thought that Sean Connery’s character is the “real” James Bond who has been under lock and key for many years. Just saying ...

For the latest official announcements on No Time To Die, visit the official website.

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Hans Zimmer takes over as music composer for No Time To Die

This is the first time that a composer has been replaced on a James Bond film. It is however NOT an unusual thing for big films.

Hans Zimmer actually did a similar rescue job a few years ago when he was brought in to fix the score to Blade Runner 2049 (2017). This is almost analogous to the what has just happened with No Time To Die.

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