“Justice League” doesn’t land in cinemas until next week, but if you feel like getting into the superhero spirit a little early, you can now sit back and stream Danny Elfman‘s score to the blockbuster.
The composer — who has put his touch on other spandex features like “Avengers: Age Of Ultron,” “Hulk,” “Spider-Man,” “Spider-Man 2,” “Batman,” and “Batman Returns” — replaces Junkie XL (“Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice,” “Mad Max: Fury Road“) who was originally tasked for the gig. Certainly, it gives the proceedings a less crash-and-bang approach, which is probably what DC is looking for as they pivot toward a lighter approach to their projects.
As previously reported, Elfman managed to mix his 1989 “Batman” theme into the soundtrack, and in an interview with DC Comics (via Superman Homepage), he explains how he created cues for the other heroes in “Justice League”:
The bigger challenge in Justice League was that I had all of these characters and I couldn’t just go and start writing big themes for everybody because you can only do so many themes in one movie. How to fit that puzzle together was really the tricky part.
I came up with two heroic themes, one which was just an overall Justice League theme and one which was a team theme. I’m using that more when the team is coming together. I also have an “Anti-Hero Theme” as well as a Steppenwolf theme. But then I tried to provide really simple little hooks for Cyborg, Flash and Aquaman, without going too far. There’s a certain point where you just get a mess of themes, and that’s just going to be a nightmare. So, I tried to simplify those characters to just a few notes, so that there’s something recognizable, and I tried to keep my new thematic action more involved around the entire group as a whole, so it didn’t get too fragmented. But it was still quite a huge jigsaw puzzle of how to do that in a way that wasn’t too messy and served the purposed of the film. So yeah, Justice League was really a challenging film, but I like challenges.
The “Justice League” score is now available digitally, with a two-CD edition landing on December 8th, and a vinyl edition available February 9, 2018.