Zimmer king of the box office 2000-2009
In the past ten years, Hans Zimmer has been the most commercially succesful film composer working in Hollywood. Other composers who join the exclusive club of composers who worked on films grossing over 2.5 billion dollars in the USA during the first decade of the new millennium are John Powell, John Debney, Danny Elfman, John Williams, James Newton Howard and Alan Silvestri. MovieScore Magazine has made an exclusive analysis of the US box office figures 2000-2009 and brings you the list of the top-100 most succesful film composers in the US.
If you look at the facts and figures, it is clear that no one really comes close to Hans Zimmer, the 52-year old German who first got his big break in Hollywood with Rain Man in the late 1980s, established a new template for action film scoring with Backdraft, Crimson Tide and The Rock, influenced romantic comedy scoring with the highly popular As Good As It Gets and won the Oscar for The Lion King. The films he has composed the music for in the past ten years grossed over $4.6 billions at the US box office, averaging over $140 millions per film. Among the most popular of his blockbusters are The Dark Knight (co-scored with James Newton Howard), the Pirates of the Caribbean films and The Da Vinci Code. If you add the numerous films where Zimmer acted as the producer of the music, overseeing and supervising the scoring of films executed by other composers (for instance Henry Jackman’s Monsters vs Aliens and Ramin Djawadi’s Iron Man), we get close to $6 billions.
“I think Hans’ success is his ability to integrate a ‘rock’ sound into a more traditional orchestral sense of melody. It keeps his style vibrant, and current, less ‘film music’ than a new pop-oriented animal as it were!” says Daniel Schweiger, a music editor and film music journalist who has followed Zimmer’s career closely.
Bob Badami, who has been a music supervisor on about a dozen of Zimmer’s films, says to MovieScore Magazine that Zimmer is “the ultimate collaborator and his genius lies in his search for unique ways to solve the challenge of each new project. He’s constantly reinventing himself but his methodology remains constant and is perfect for the ways that movies are made today.”
In the past decade, Zimmer has worked with some of Hollywood’s most prominent directors, including Ridley Scott, Ron Howard and Christopher Nolan. Filmmakers who worked with Zimmer often point out how collaborative and easy-going the composer is. Guy Ritchie, who recently worked with him for the first time on Sherlock Holmes, said in an interview with IESB: “He was tremendously creative, very collaborative and extremely enthusiastic, and the chap has something of a small ego, which made the whole process tremendously easy.”
Box office figures, of course, is not the only way to measure the success of film composers. This article will be followed by another top-100 list where we look at the composers listed here in a different, more “quality” orientated way.
Following is MovieScore Magazine’s list of the top-100 composers at the US box office 2000-2009. Please note that only films grossing over $1 million has been included in the analysis and that films with more than one person officially credited as the main composers has had the total US gross split evenly between them (for instance, Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard gets 50% each of the Dark Knight and Batman Begins gross).
- HANS ZIMMER – $3897m.
Top-5 films: The Dark Knight, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, The Da Vinci Code, Mission: Impossible II.
Even after we calculated the box office figures so that the total gross for a film is split between the composers if there was more than one doing the score (for instance, Zimmer co-scored The Dark Knight and Batman Begins with James Newton Howard and Kung Fu Panda with John Powell), Zimmer is still at the top of the list. His prolific output has been very versatile, ranging from big action epics to lighweight romantic comedies. There is no abundance of heavy-weight dramas in Zimmer’s filmography though – Zimmer works on big blockbuster entertainment and that is, of course, also where the big money is. - JOHN POWELL – $3245m.
Top-5 films: Shrek, X-Men: The Last Stand, Hancock, The Bourne Ultimatum, Kung Fu Panda.
Interestingly, a former Zimmer “protege” is the second most succesful composer of the first decade. Powell began his decade co-scoring a couple of highly succesful pictures with Harry Gregson-Williams (Chicken Run and Shrek) and The Road to El Dorado with Zimmer, and then went on to compose solo on the majority of his films. His scores for the Bourne films have been very influential in terms of action film scoring recently, but he has also been very prolific patricularly in animation (two Ice Age movies, Bolt, Happy Feet and Horton Hears a Who, for instance). - JOHN DEBNEY – $2820m.
Top-5 films: The Passion of the Christ, Bruce Almighty, Elf, Chicken Little, The Pacifier.
John Debney reaches third place on this list much thanks to the sheer amount of films he’s worked on – he had 45 films that grossed more than a million dollars during the ten year period, a score unmatched by anyone on this list. Interestingly, the highest grossing film he scored was also the one that stood out in terms of critical acclaim: Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. Otherwise, Debney’s filmography is, to a high extent, dominated by comedies, some of them very succesful at the box office. - DANNY ELFMAN – $2737m.
Top-5 films: Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Men in Black II, Planet of the Apes.
Danny Elfman’s output in the past ten years has been focused on big action movies and the first two Spider-Man movies alone grossed $777m. and are the two most succesful films in Elfman’s 25-year film scoring career. Of the four Tim Burton films he scored Charlie and the Chocalate Factory was the highest grossing one. The composer has been on the A-list since the early 1990s and remains one the most sought-after composers in the business and one who is considered to have the most personal style. - JOHN WILLIAMS – $2609m.
Top-5 films: Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
The only true veteran among the top composers on this list, 77-year old John Williams has (quite logically) slowed down a little bit in terms of the number of films he has scored in the past ten years (14 films as opposed to 20 in the 1990s). Now, if you look at the average box office receipts for his films, he still is at the top of the game with $186m per film (compare that, for instance, with Debney’s $63m. per film). Williams’ Star Wars and Harry Potter projects have of course been extremely succesful, while most of the dramas he has scored has only grossed average results at the box office.
- JAMES NEWTON HOWARD – $2608m.
Top-5 films: The Dark Knight, I Am Legend, Signs, King Kong, Batman Begins.
Two collaborations with Hans Zimmer on Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, a frenzied replacement score for Peter Jackson and a number of acclaimed contributions to the films of M. Night Shyamalan made the past decade the most succesful so far in James Newton Howard’s 25-year long film career. Comedies and dramas has provided balance to Howard’s filmography, but most of those have been mildly succesful (2009’s Confessions of a Shopaholic and Duplicity are two examples).
- ALAN SILVESTRI – $2505m.
Top-5 films: Night at the Museum, Cast Away, The Mummy Returns, What Women Want, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.
Silvestri’s impressive 25-year collaboration with Robert Zemeckis resulted in a number of hits (Cast Away, The Polar Express and the current A Christmas Carol), but it’s a couple of his other films that took him to the top-10 of the box office between 2000 and 2009. Both Night at the Museum grossed over $400m. together, and action films such as The Mummy Returns and G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra also added to the success.
- HARRY GREGSON-WILLIAMS – $2246m.
Top-5 films: Shrek 2, Shrek the Third, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Shrek, X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
As the list above suggests, without the immensely succesful Shrek franchise, Gregson-Williams would not be where he is, at least not on this list. His top-grossing films are mostly animated films or fantasy adventures, with the occasional urban action thriller popping up here and there. His frequent collaborations with director Tony Scott have been solid in terms of their results at the box-office, but they’ve never reached the level of their first film together, 1998’s Enemy of the State. - DAVID NEWMAN – $1751m.
Top-5 films: Ice Age, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, Scooby-Doo, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, Dr. Dolittle 2.
It might be considered a surprise that David Newman is among the top-10 on this list while his brother, Thomas, isn’t. The reason is simple, though – David scored many more films in the past decade, to be precise 24 as opposed to Thomas’ 14. David has scored a number of highly succesful comedies (he’s probably the most typecast of the composers in the top-10) including the recent Alvin and the Chipmunks which grossed over $150m. alone during the holidays. - CHRISTOPHE BECK – $1746m.
Top-5 films: The Hangover, Cheaper by the Dozen, American Wedding, The Pink Panther, What Happens in Vegas.
A case similar to David Newman, Christophe Beck has been working on a large number of succesful comedies in the past decade – but unlike Newman, Beck is also scoring a number of heavy action movies (such as The Seeker: The Dark is Rising and Elektra), but few of them comes close to the box office receipts generated by comedies like The Hangover and The Pink Panther.
Rest of composers listed with their top-3 box-office successes 2000-2009:
- Howard Shore (The Lord of the Ring: The Return of the King, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring) – $1704m.
- James Horner (Avatar, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Perfect Storm) – $1667m.
- Trevor Rabin (National Treasure: Book of Secrets, National Secret, Bad Boys II) – $1651m.
- Theodore Shapiro (Marley & Me, The Devil Wears Prada, Blades of Glory) – $1395m.
- Michael Giacchino (Up, The Incredibles, Star Trek) – $1368m.
- Aaron Zigman (The Proposal, Sex and the City, Madea Goes to Jail) – $1298m.
- Rolfe Kent (Wedding Crashers, Freaky Friday, Legally Blonde) – $1262m.
- Marco Beltrami (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, I Robot, Live Free or Die Hard) – $1250m.
- Randy Newman (Meet the Fockers, Monsters Inc, Cars) – $1182m.
- Thomas Newman (Finding Nemo, Wall-E, The Green Mile) – $1180m.
- Christopher Young (Spider-Man 3, Ghost Rider, The Grudge) – $1166m.
- John Ottman (X2, Superman Returns, Fantastic Four) – $1091m.
- Teddy Castellucci (Wild Hogs, The Longest Yard, Anger Management) – $1087m.
- David Arnold (Quantum of Solace, Casino Royale, Die Another Day)- $1086m
- Mark Isham (Save the Last Dance, Eight Below, Miracle) – $1052m.
- Graeme Revell (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Daredevil, Pineapple Express) – $1051m.
- Steve Jablonsky (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Transformers, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) – $1033m.
- Ed Shearmur (Charlie’s Angels, Miss Congeniality, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle) – $953m.
- Carter Burwell (The Blind Side, Twilight, Where the Wild Things Are) – $917m.
- Alexandre Desplat (New Moon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Julie & Julia) – $879m.
- Rupert Gregson-Williams (Over the Hedge, Click, Bee Movie) – $855m.
- Brian Tyler (Fast & Furious, Eagle Eye, Rambo) – $844m.
- Randy Edelman (xXx, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, 27 Dresses) – $770m.
- Tyler Bates (300, Watchmen, The Day the Earth Stood Still) – $750m.
- Klaus Badelt (Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Constantine, Poseidon) – $746m.
- George S. Clinton (Austin Powers: Goldmember, The Santa Clause 2, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause) – $721m.
- Patrick Doyle (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Eragon, Bridget Jones’ Diary) – $671m.
- Nicholas Hooper (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, The Heart of Me) – $594m.
- Mark Mothersbaugh (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, Herbie Fully Loaded) – $583m.
- George Fenton (Hitch, Sweet Home Alabama, Fool’s Gold) – $558m.
- Craig Armstrong (The Incredible Hulk, Ray, World Trade Center) – $552m.
- Ramin Djawadi (Iron Man, Open Season, Blade: Trinity) – $548m.
- Don Davis (The Matrix Reloaded, Jurassic Park III, The Matrix Revolutions) – $544m.
- Lalo Schifrin (Rush Hour 2, Rush Hour 3, Bringing Down the House) – $527m.
- Richard Gibbs (Big Momma’s House, Barbershop 2: Back in Business, Like Mike) – $524m.
- Charlie Clouser (Saw II, Saw III, Saw IV) $476m.
- Mychael Danna (The Time Traveler’s Wife, Little Miss Sunshine, Surf’s Up) – $464m.
- David Holmes (Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve, Ocean’s Thirteen) – $458m.
- David Kitay (Scary Movie, Bad Santa, Date Movie) – $442m.
- Alex Wurman (Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Four Christmases, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy) – $413m.
- Lyle Workman (Superbad, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Yes Man) – $411m.
- Rachel Portman (Chocolat, The Manchurian Candidate, Mona Lisa Smile) – $409m.
- James L. Venable (Scary Movie 3, Scary Movie 4, Zack and Miri Make a Porno) – $402m.
- John Murphy (Snatch, 28 Days Later, Sunshine) – $400m.
- Marc Shaiman (Hairspray, The Bucket List, The Kid) – $366m.
- Mark Mancina (Brother Bear, Training Day, Haunted Mansion) – $350m.
- Jerry Goldsmith (The Sum of All Fears, Along Came a Spider, Hollow Man) – $348m. *
- Terence Blanchard (Inside Man, Barbershop, Next Friday) – $335m.
- Paul Haslinger (Underworld, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Prom Night) – $334m.
- William Ross (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Ladder 49, The Tale of Despereaux) – $317m.
- Waddy Wachtel (Paul Blart: Mall Cop, The Benchwarmers, The House Bunny) – $314m.
- Harald Kloser (The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, 10000 BC) – $302m.
- Elliot Goldenthal (S.W.A.T., Public Enemies, Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within) – $300m.
- Jon Brion (The Break-Up, Step Brothers, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) – $287m.
- Dario Marianelli (V for Vendetta, Atonement, Pride & Prejudice) – $284m.
- Michael Kamen (X-Men, Open Range, Frequency) – $275m. **
- Gabriel Yared (Could Mountain, 1408, Shall We Dance) – $274m.
- Clint Mansell (Sahara, Smokin’ Aces, Definitely Maybe) – $274m.
- A.R. Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire, Couples Retreat, Elizabeth: The Golden Age) – $272m.
- BT (The Fast and the Furious, Monster, Driven) – $265m.
- David Lawrence (American Pie 2, High School Musical 3: Senior Year, Van Wilder) – $257m.
- Nathan Barr (The Dukes of Hazzard, Hostel, Shutter) – $241m.
- Alan Menken (Enchanted, The Shaggy Dog, Home on the Range) – $239m.
- Thomas Wander (The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, 10000 BC) -$221m.
- Marcus Miller (This Christmas, Head of State, The Brother) – $213m.
- Heitor Pereira (Beverly Hills Chihuahua, It’s Complicated, Curious George) – $204m.
- John Frizzell (Thirteen Ghosts, Cradle 2 the Grave, Ghost Ship) – $201m.
- Philip Glass (Secret Window, No Reservations, The Hours) – $200m.
- Stanley Clarke (Romeo Must Die, Undercover Brother, First Sunday) – $199m.
- Henry Jackman (Monsters vs. Aliens) – $198m.
- Trevor Jones (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Crossroads, Thirteen Days) – $194m.
- Erran Baron Cohen (Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Brüno) – $189m.
- Kyle Eastwood / Michael Stevens (Gran Torino, Invictus, Letters from Iwo Jima) – $185m.
- Craig Wedren (The School of Rock, Role Models, Reno 911! Miami) – $184m.
- Andrea Guerra (The Pursuit of Happyness, Hotel Rwanda, Nine) – $183m.
- Tan Dun (Chrouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero) – $182m.
- Joel McNeely (Holes, Return to Never Land, The Jungle Book 2) – $178m.
- Cliff Eidelman (He’s Just Not That Into You, The Lizzie McGuire Movie, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) – $178m.
- T. Bone Burnett (Walk the Line, The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, O Brother Where Art Thou?) – $178m.
- Shirley Walker (Final Destination 3, Final Destination, Final Destination 2) – $177m. ***
- Marc Streitenfeld (American Gangster, Body of Lies, A Good Year) – $177m.
- Gustavo Santaolalla (Brokeback Mountain, Babel, North Country) – $174m.
- David Julyan (Insomnia, The Prestige, The Descent) – $172m.
- Geoff Zanelli (Secret Window, Hitman, Gamer) – $167m.
- Lisa Gerrard (Gladiator, Ali, Tears of the Sun) – $167m.
- Cliff Martinez (Traffic, Solaris, Wicker Park) -163m.
- tomandandy (The Strangers, The Hills Have Eyes, The Mothman Prophecies) – $163m.
- Nancy Wilson(Vanilla Sky, Almost Famous, Elizabethtown) – $160m.
- David Sardy (21, Zombieland) – $157m.
- Nathaniel Mechaly (Taken, Ushpizin, Revolver) – $146m.
US box office statistics up until Jan 1, 2010, courtesy of the Internet Movie Database. *) Composer died in 2004, **) Composer died in 2003, ***) Composer died in 2006.
I find the “yardsticks” by which this article measures both time and success to be lacking.
The first year of the 21st century was 2001 (Y2K was the final year of the 20th century). Why use 2000 – 2009 as the range for this topic? Indeed, why should you even classify films scores by a 10 year period anyway? What is the point of all this?
This leads to the other misconception of your article that film music’s quality is determined by box office receipts.
Looking at “facts and figures” does not signify that the music is well composed or that Hans Zimmer is the favorite composer amongst soundtrack collectors.
Did the agents representing these composers pay you a fee to produce such an article, as a sort of commercial announcement for them?
Are composers who write music for films now competing against each other like contestants in a Miss America Pageant?
Do us a favor and stop writing articles like this – just focus on quality musical compositions. This is why soundtrack collectors listen to movie scores – they fell in love with the music of films!
We do not need to see yet another report on top-grossing statistics – we see enough of that elsewhere…
Ronald, in response to your comment, I find the “yardsticks” by which you measure this article to be lacking as well…
Nowhere is it stated in the article that this list has anything to do with musical quality, nor does it say that it signifies whether or not the music is well composed – which composer is the most popular among soundtrack collectors. This article deal with facts and figures that, whether your like it or not, are highly relevant to the film music industry. It only measures the commercial success a composer has had in the past ten years, nothing else.
In case you missed the sentence in the article that actually addresses this, here it is again:
Box office figures, of course, is not the only way to measure the success of film composers. This article will be followed by another top-100 list where we look at the composers listed here in a different, more “quality” orientated way.
Finally, MovieScore Magazine is an independent site and we do, of course, not write articles as “commercial announcements” for agents or composers.
Thanks for the reply, Mikael C:
I am glad to learn that MovieScore Magazine is independent.
This means we can be assured of unbiased writing, and that articles’ subject matters are not prompted by any party lobbying for special interest.
However, what did prompt this article?
What is special or magical about the number 10?
Why not have a 7-year lookback period, or a 13-year span?
Indeed, why look at commercial success in the first place?
Thanks for taking the time to compile this. FWIW, I found it to be informative and enlightening.
In response, again, to Ronald Z: the reason behind the article is simply that we find these stats relevant and interesting. MovieScore Magazine is a news site devoted to film music news, and unlike many other film music web sites, we do not publish reviews of soundtracks or have an opinion about composers or their scores. This article is based on facts, whether you like the “results” or not.
Also, I think the question about the “odd” number of 10 is quite peculiar. You may have noticed that quite a lot of media’s attention lately has been devoted to the past decade in one way or another – why would MovieScore Magazine be an exception?
I realize, Mikael, that this article is based upon facts.
If the films scored by Alexandre Desplat earned $879 million dollars over the past 10 years, then I believe the data you are reporting.
I am not questioning the sources of the information, or how you added up the box office results to arrive at that total.
I will trust that your facts are correct.
However, I wish to challenge the mentality behind all this.
MovieScore Magazine SHOULD be an exception. The staff there should not subscribe to such commonplace notions as “top 100″ lists and reviewing the “past decade” just because the rest of society and the rest of the media is doing this.
Do you want to be a carbon copy of all the other news media?
Give us articles with individuality in them!
Explore the esoteric!
Defy convention!
How do you feel about including composers who have died during that 10-year period? Should their deaths make them look like box office losers? A list like this is a tricky thing to pull off. Thanks for doing your best on this, though. The number really are interesting.
By the way, I would caution to not overstate the importance or significance of box office when it comes to how “hireable” a composer is. The number one reason, and almost always the only reason, to hire a composer is still personal business relationships.
eewee1, you are right: a few of the composers on the list are no longer with us. This is now addressed in the article.
Curious article. I’m not sure what to take away from it. Using the last 10 years is problematic as it skews the rankings unfairly to newer composers. Jerry Goldsmith, just to name one, would be way higher than 57th if the bulk of his work were included. And if you were to go back just a few more years in time, James Horner would probably hit the number one spot only because Titanic was such a mega-hit in 1997.
The real issue, of course, is that nowhere is there any indication of how much any composer’s score furthered the financial success of the movie. I realize that was not the intent of the article, though that is its fatal flaw. There have been those scores that have greatly improved a movie’s impact, furthering its financial success. And a great many very successful movies had mediocre scores that had no real effect on that movie’s financial success.
I’m not sure it is even possible to establish, but that would be an informative and interesting article. How much did the composers work add to the financial success of a movie.
Well, 10Arrows, what you propose is of course impossible to do. It is not possible to measure, in numbers, how much a score contribute to a film’s success. You will have to take the article above for what it is: it lists composers and their films in the past ten years according to the films’ box office results – nothing more, nothing less.
I don’t agree with you that the article “skews the rankings unfairly to newer composers” because it simply doesn’t. The list is limited to the past ten years and we clearly indiciate that everywhere in the article. It’s not an “all-time” ranking, it’s not about the past 15 years, it’s not about the past 25 years. Of course the results would be different if we had moved the parameters. But the aim with the 10 year limit is to keep the listing fairly current.
The list doesn’t indicate how financially successful the composers have been, only how successful the films have been. Which essentially interests me not in the slightest. I haven’t bought copies of any of the top five Zimmer scores listed, because the music barely interests me at all. What might be of some interest – but of course all but impossible to determine – is how successful the composers have been. Which is to say how much money they actually made. I’m sure some composers have been paid huge sums of money for films which were financial disasters, while others received moderate rewards for films which turned out to be massive hits.
Another problem with the list is that it only takes into account the US box office. Even some American films which don’t do particularly well in the US become significant hits in the rest of the world, while films which are massive in America flop elsewhere.
Oh, and Ronald Z is right. The decade isn’t over until the end of this year.
Even if it doesn’t interest you, Gary, “in the slightest,” how commercially succesful films have been in the US is definitely relevant from an industry perspective. This article is not written from a fan perspective – it’s looking at the top-100 composers from a business angle. That is, of course, not of interest to everyone. That’s life. As for the limitation to US box office figures only: we had to put the limit somewhere and the exhaustive work put into the analysis of US figures only was “painful” enough.
To all of you anal-retentive calendar snobs…
In terms of pop-culture trends we deal in decades. Each decade has a unique style and set of characteristics to them. The 60s are unique from the 80s and he know what those unique parameters are.
Decades are defined not by the technically correct calendar decade 2001-2010 but by the number in the tens column 2000-2009. DANCES WITH WOLVES is not an 80’s film. VH1’s “I LOVE the 70’s” does not include the Rubik’s Cube (released in 1980). 2000 is NOT the 90s.
We do it this way because we can.
Meanwhile, nice article Mikael…the numbers are of interest and relevant to the industry…sadly, they are the MOST relevant.
I’m surprised that Thomas Newman is only on the 20. position. His music has often sophisticated sounds and therefore it’s not so approachable like Hans Zimmer’s compositions but I’ve noticed that there are many people who enjoy scores like “American Beauty”, “Wall-E” or “Finding Nemo” and they aren’t film music listeners at all. Interesting.
I realize that most of the public view decades in the fashion that bmsatter describes.
However, I think that even a 10-year span is still too large a period into which films and music should be categorized. Whether we look at 1960 through 1969 or 1961 through 1970, the black and white films made at the beginning of the ’60s are stylistically different than the films made at the end of ’60s. Films reflecting the cold-war paranoia, such as “Fail-Safe”, “The Manchurian Candidate”, “Seven Days in May”, etc. are rather in a different mold than the movies depicting sexual freedoms, feminism, nudity and so forth in the likes of “Petulia”, “The Arrangement”, and many others.
Similarly, the realistic adult films such as “Sunday Bloody Sunday” from the early ’70s are stylistically apart from the late 70s blockbuster effects films like “Superman”, “Alien”, etc.
So I think it rather uneccessary to group films and music by a 10 year period.
I do not consider my self a snob or a calendar-watcher; I wish to challenge the commonly held notions, is all. I want people to re-think these common-place ideas like “Oh, the decade is over – let’s do a top 100 list”. I wish to make people question this mentality and think -) is the decade really over? -) what is a decade? -) should we even judge films and music by a decade in the first place?
I agree with you, Ronald Z, but you have to notice that the article shows only the business point of view. We’re not talking about the art but some kind of broker’s board.
Hello,
after looking at William Ross’ box office numbers, it seems that “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” wasn’t factored in your total (only $186M). Not sure why not? And if that’s a conscious choice, then why do you mention the movie as one of his credits?
William Ross’ official credit on the Harry Potter movie was not as composer, that credit went to John Williams. Ross’ was credited with adapting and conducting. In this particular case, in the calculation of BO receipts in this list Ross and Williams got 50% each of the total gross.
Thanks Mikael for the reply. I do understand your point regarding the “shared credit” for HP 2.
However, if you have accounted for 50% of Harry Potter 2 grosses into William Ross’ box office total, then the final number can’t be right. Harry Potter 2’s box office receipts were $261,988,482, which would mean counting about $130M for each.
Ladder 49 made $74M and Tale of Despereaux made $50M. Just with those three that’s already a total of $254M. That’s not counting My Dog Skip ($34M), Tuck Everlasting ($19M), Young Black Stallion ($6M), or September Dawn ($1M). Add those, and I believe the total should then be around $315M (give and take).
So… basically, it’s missing about $130M… or half of the box office receipts for HP 2
What is being overlooked here is the number of films that Zimmer can take on simultaneously because of his use of ghostwriters.
When you see a film that says “Music by Hans Zimmer”, you can be sure that a fair amount of it is music composed by others.
This includes rejected cues meant for other films.
Hans’ agents send him far more scores than any one composer could handle because he assigns so many cues to others.
The films come in for Hans Zimmer and leave “by Hans Zimmer”, but what happens in between is not 100% Zimmer.
Instead of turning away scores, he accepts them and uses others to complete them.
Hans learned a long time ago that royalties and points are what pays.
Hans would rather even split credits with another A list composer (Zimmer/JNH) than reject a potential blockbuster.
They’re that profitable.
Hans’ statement that he’s “semi-retired” is accurate.
He semi-composes his scores and only when necessary, semi-credits himself.
I’m surprised that my comments re. Mr. Ross’ box office numbers were not taken into consideration. I am sure much time went into getting all these figures right, but if, of the ±10 composers’ box office numbers I’ve checked, one of them is wrong, I have to wonder about the remaining 90 composers I haven’t checked .
Really disappointed to see that this hasn’t been corrected yet
I have read all these comments with interest. Mikael, you are usually fair and balanced in your assessment but since you have given Hans Zimmer the top spot don’t you owe to your readers and the composers who are credited on the films with him an equally divisible figure. Hans and everyone in his organization works on every film. To get the proper perspective you have to divide the US gross by each of the composers not just Hans. He never works alone anymore. If for example there are six credited composers on one of his films and the picture grosses 600 million each composer should receive a 100 million. For example, the difference between the Number 1 spot and Number 5 spot is that we know factually that every piece of music written by John Williams was orchestrated and composed by John Williams. His orchestrators are fact checkers and never create any original score. This is a list of the most commercially successful individuals involved in film music not the most commercially successful composers because a large number on your list do not compose or orchestrate their own scores.
Jeff, in fact, all of the films where Zimmer shared the main credit with another composer has indeed been split between him and the other composers. I have not take into account additional composer credits, however. So, should we split the numbers between composers and orchestrators in every single case but John Williams’?
Hellgi, regarding William Ross numbers: stay tuned for a revised list and apologies for the delay.
Thanks, Mikael, for the update and revision.
Cheers,
Hellgi
With regard to the sharing of credit, I think that if the main composer and the studio give credit on any film to other composers because they deserve a credit of additional music on the film than it needs to be sub divided. The only composers who should receive full credit regarding ranking on the score and your number tally are those without any additional music credits on the films. Orchestrators for this discussion are not part of the calculation . There are many composers on your list who use orchestrators in the proper manner and many who use them as composers without crediting them properly. That is not the issue to be discussed. The fact of the matter is that John Williams is not the only composer on your list who writes and orchestrates himself , however it is more likely that 40% of the composers you list desperately need orchestrators and additional music to complete their scores not because of time constraints but because they do not have the musical knowledge or training to do the job in the first place.
Interesting, I wonder what the statistics are on your first point there…
thanks for posting this article.
Aleksander Debicz said:
I’m surprised that Thomas Newman is only on the 20. position. His music has often sophisticated sounds and therefore it’s not so approachable like Hans Zimmer’s compositions but I’ve noticed that there are many people who enjoy scores like “American Beauty”, “Wall-E” or “Finding Nemo” and they aren’t film music listeners at all. Interesting
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Jeff, in fact, all of the films where Zimmer shared the main credit with another composer has indeed been split between him and the other composers. I have not take into account additional composer credits, however. So, should we split the numbers between composers and orchestrators in every single case but John Williams’?
Hellgi, regarding William Ross numbers: stay tuned for a revised list and apologies for the delay.
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Box office figures, of course, is not the only way to measure the success of film composers. This article will be followed by another top-100 list where we look at the composers listed here in a different, more “quality” orientated way.
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James Newton Howard and Alan Silvestri. MovieScore Magazine has made an exclusive analysis of the US box office figures 2000-2009 and brings you the list of the top-100 most succesful film composers in the US.
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