This is part of a series.
- Here’s the prior post on various 2023 scores - https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=131430
- If you want the full set of links, click on my profile.

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For new dad Henry Jackman, 2023 seemed to be a quiet year. The only work with his name on it was Extraction 2, like the first Extraction co-composed with Alex Belcher for the Russo brothers. The sequel score jettisoned its predecessor’s rip-offs of Inception and The Dark Knight but otherwise continued the “gnarly, unthematic, textural music” that dominated the 2020 film, resulting in an hour-long album of undifferentiated chugging rage - and with a third film announced, expect more of the same in a few years. Belcher got sole credit for the Russos’ other streaming project, the ludicrously expensive action series Citadel about amnesic spies. There is some notable orchestral might at times and a few moments where Belcher got to channel his love of Bernard Herrmann’s music, but this is no Kingsman; despite the genre’s potential for snazzy music (“Bond is always hovering over you”), the end result largely played to tired modern conventions, with frequent repeated string patterns and electronic distortions looking back nearly a decade to The Winter Solider, a Jackman score Belcher contributed to. And with Amazon renewing Citadel and financing a global franchise of spin-offs, expect more of the same from this too.

Citadel Season 1 - ** - Alex Belcher; add’l music by Evan Goldman, Antonio Di Iorio, Alex Lu & Antonio Andrade; orchestrated by Stephen Coleman, Michael J. Lloyd, Geoff Lawson & Lewis Meyer

Extraction 2 - *½ - Henry Jackman & Alex Belcher; add’l music by Evan Goldman, Tom Hodge & Jon Monroe; orchestrated by Stephen Coleman, Michael J. Lloyd, Geoff Lawson & Lewis Meyer; piano and conducting by Gavin Greenaway; score technicians Maverick Dugger & Joe Cho

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Zack Snyder’s films are rarely critical darlings, but even by his standards many of the reviews thrown towards the first half of his Netflix space opera Rebel Moon were particularly savage, with some even speculating that the film was released unfinished. Its inclusion of another Tom Holkenborg score seemed a fate worse than death to many score fans given how their collaborations often resulted in music that was the polar opposite of what they liked about scores, some still not having recovered from the assault on the ears that was the album for Army of the Dead two years earlier. But for Tom it was a welcome reunion. “There’s that saying in Hollywood: never change your wedding team. It’s been more than 10 years that we’ve been collaborating. It stays exciting - and challenging. We just go really well together.”

Plenty of those listeners were frustrated when the score came out and featured his trademark abrasive brass blasts, relentless drums, and sound design. But Tom juxtaposed that with homespun fiddle sounds, new age vocals, and choirs of various sizes, the composer looking to balance “futuristic elements” with an “earthy [sound] as Rebel Moon starts on an agricultural planet.” Its thematic narrative was less inspired that Tom’s output in his Adventures With Orchestra days, and it didn’t exactly transcend the Mad Mad: Fury Road template (or its Hans-ian ancestors), but it still ended up being the most palatable of his Snyder scores on album - often indistinctive relative to Tom’s earlier action scores, but rarely obnoxious.

Coming late in a year where the only other notable thing with Tom’s name on it had been an article in The Guardian that portrayed him as an asshole boss, an accusation he denied, Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire signified that the composer was about to return to the limelight. Set to debut in the subsequent twelve months were Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver, the Ubisoft pirate video game Skull and Bones, a sequel to Godzilla vs. Kong, Sonic the Hedgehog 3, and a reunion with George Miller on a Mad Max: Fury Road prequel. 2024 is going to be Tom’s world; we’ll all just be listening to it.

Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire - *** - Tom Holkenborg; add’l music by Ching-Shan Chang, Dallin Burns, Jack Roberts, Luca Fagagnini & Rafael Frost; orchestrated by Holkenborg, Jonathan Beard, Edward Trybek & Henri Wilkenson; conducted by Gavin Greenaway; solo cello Caroline Dale; violin & viola Max Karmazyn; vocalists Sumudu Jayatilaka, Sam Oladeinde & Giulia Vallisari; steel string acoustic guitar John Parracelli

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For Hans, the year was supposed to be both a victory lap and an extreme challenge, with Dune: Part Two a follow-up to his most awarded music in some time that would also likely trigger his established anxieties over working on sequels to films he scored. But the concurrent writer and actor strikes of 2023 pushed the return to the sands of Arrakis to spring 2024, and so while Hans and his team worked on that score in 2023 the only things of his that the public experienced in the calendar year were his concerts (not a bad consolation prize) and two other films. Neither of those movies was Christopher Nolan’s immensely successful Oppenheimer though. Hans was likely unable to devote enough time to the director’s explosive biopic, with Nolan instead relying on Ludwig Göransson after using him on his time-inverting 2020 movie Tenet, though the longer this separation goes on (6+ years) the more I can’t help but wonder if the challenges of scoring Dunkirk were more disruptive to their partnership than were publicly acknowledged.

The 2023 adaptation of Judy Blume’s classic coming-of-age novel Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. made for a long-awaited reunion with producer James L. Brooks, the two having not worked together since Brooks’ final directorial effort, the misbegotten 2010 romcom How Do You Know. Hans - with David Fleming likely having an active role given his “produced / additional music by” credit - crafted easygoing music that fit comfortably with his prior charming comedy scores. Despite its recording sessions being featured in a 60 Minutes profile of the composer months before the movie came out, the score was never released commercially. The terrific film wasn’t a financial success despite widespread critical praise, and in the movie the score does have to compete with a number of songs from the era, but it remains shocking that in an age where seemingly anything involving Hans gets an album release that this one didn’t.

The other release was the sci-fi film The Creator. You’d think in the wake of Dune that a futuristic action movie set amidst the backdrop of a war between mankind and artificial intelligence would be an opportunity for synths, strange instruments, and sound design - and The Creator even had Joe Walker, the editor of Blade Runner 2049 and Dune, involved (he was apparently instrumental in getting Hans on board). Electronics were present, but otherwise Hans - and Steve Mazzaro who got the same “produced / additional music by” credit he got on No Time to Die, suggesting he may have had just as significant a role in this score’s creation as he did on the Bond one - gave the film something wholly different, a more symphonic sound blended with choir, organ, and Eastern percussion sounds, the latter calling to mind his soothing material from 1995’s Beyond Rangoon. It was surprisingly emotive music for the concept - but then we are talking about a composer who prides himself on at least trying not to do the expected with every gig.

And yet the most newsworthy thing about the music of The Creator wasn’t the actual composition, as director Gareth Edwards publicly copped to going to an artificial intelligence music company to generate a Hans-like score, claiming he got a “pretty damn good 7 out of 10, but the reason you go to Hans is for 10 out of 10.” Edwards suggested Hans was amused, but I’m sure many in the composing profession, if not the broader music industry, find the disruptive potential of AI a bit less funny. Edwards and his financial backers may not have been able to tolerate a 7 out of 10, but someone else will, and the AI houses will get better and give someone else their version of a 10 out of 10 in the next few years. Also, while the Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild were both able to secure protections against AI replacing them in the resolution of their respective strikes, there is no composers guild in Hollywood offering similar protections.

And sure, Hans prevailed in this battle with AI, but can he and his peers win the war? He’s been a disruptor throughout most of his career in Hollywood, but then it's only natural in any industry that disruption should itself be disrupted after some time, and after decades of folks turning to Remote Control (and Media Ventures before it) it’s hard not to see AI as an ever-encroaching existential threat going forward. If facsimiles of Drake and the Weeknd can be put out there by Tiktok users, one can imagine some future studio boss wondering why they should pay Bleeding Fingers to write documentary music when an algorithm can get close enough - and once that domino falls, whither more prestigious gigs? Hans has shown a deft ability to evolve his style over time, and it is probably foolish to bet against him even as he heads into his late sixties, but it remains to be seen if the man who in the last 30 years has gone from a Hollywood neophyte to a veritable film music institution in part thanks to his technological acumen and revolutionary use of samples can stay ahead of this trend or if Edwards’ story is a harbinger of doom for the profession.

The Creator - **** - Hans Zimmer; produced / add’l music by Steve Mazzaro; orchestrated by Oscar Senén; conducted by Gavin Greenaway; choir conducted by Ben Parry; vocalist Stephanie Olmanni; pitched percussion Aleksandra Suklar; woodwinds Pedro Eustache; cello Tina Guo; digital instrument design Mark Wherry; technical assistant Alejandro Moros

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. - ***½ - Hans Zimmer; produced / add’l music by David Fleming; add’l arrangements by Aldo Arechar; orchestrated by Oscar Senén; conducted by Gavin Greenaway; digital instrument design Mark Wherry; digital instrument preparation Raul Vega; technical assistant Alejandro Moros

(Message edited on Friday, February 23, 2024, at 6:18 a.m.)

The one thing I think composer has going against AI is that it generates money to celebrate a person, not an AI. No one is going to go to an AI concert. They go to a John Williams concert. No one is going to see an AI winning the Oscars. I think there is a more money to be made ultimately in the entertainment industry with people. To me, entertainment is like sports. Can a robot play basketball? Sure. But would anyone watch? Singer, composing, athletics are about expressing the human culture. I just don't think that would disappear anytime soon.

> The one thing I think composer has going against AI is that it generates
> money to celebrate a person, not an AI. No one is going to go to an AI
> concert. They go to a John Williams concert. No one is going to see an AI
> winning the Oscars. I think there is a more money to be made ultimately in
> the entertainment industry with people. To me, entertainment is like
> sports. Can a robot play basketball? Sure. But would anyone watch? Singer,
> composing, athletics are about expressing the human culture. I just don't
> think that would disappear anytime soon.

Sure, but this only addresses the top end of the spectrum. You're right that John Williams isn't at risk from AI (well...he's 92, for one thing), and probably Hans Zimmer or even Ludwig Göransson or any other acclaimed, established composer isn't either. But what about all the jobbing composers writing music on a tight budget and tighter schedule for non-prestige TV shows? Nobody knows their names outside of niche forums like this, their music might not even be released, they certainly aren't putting on concerts or winning awards, and are probably surviving job to job in a notoriously unforgiving industry to break into. Those are the guys and gals that AI makes me worried for, not John Williams.

> Sure, but this only addresses the top end of the spectrum. You're right
> that John Williams isn't at risk from AI (well...he's 92, for one thing),
> and probably Hans Zimmer or even Ludwig Göransson or any other acclaimed,
> established composer isn't either. But what about all the jobbing
> composers writing music on a tight budget and tighter schedule for
> non-prestige TV shows? Nobody knows their names outside of niche forums
> like this, their music might not even be released, they certainly aren't
> putting on concerts or winning awards, and are probably surviving job to
> job in a notoriously unforgiving industry to break into. Those are the
> guys and gals that AI makes me worried for, not John Williams.

Just now discovering this year-old discussion due to JBlough's most recent post, but imma jump in here and agree with you that AI music is likely an existential threat to the jobs of new/up-and-coming composers. Truthfully, AI could probably actually produce something of equivalent quality for less time and money for a lot of things like non-prestige TV scores, nature docs, and other projects that often have a pretty fixed formula to the music.

However, to Mephariel's point about the entertainment industry finding it easier to promote people than an AI, I'm not so sure that may still apply. The rise of AI influencers demonstrates it would be possible to create an AI composer identity, complete with an AI generated face and personality, and that many people would be willing to accept that and to become fans of the AI identity.

> Just now discovering this year-old discussion due to JBlough's most recent post, but imma jump in here and agree with you that AI music is likely an existential threat to the jobs of new/up-and-coming composers. Truthfully, AI could probably actually produce something of equivalent quality for less time and money for a lot of things like non-prestige TV scores, nature docs, and other projects that often have a pretty fixed formula to the music.

> However, to Mephariel's point about the entertainment industry finding it easier to promote people than an AI, I'm not so sure that may still apply. The rise of AI influencers demonstrates it would be possible to create an AI composer identity, complete with an AI generated face and personality, and that many people would be willing to accept that and to become fans of the AI identity.

With half of my consulting projects over the last year-plus having some flavor of AI to them, it's worth adding a few things on this topic.

1) It was in the news this week that the CEO of the fintech Klarna said that he believes AI can do all the jobs humans do. This is of course straight nonsense. My teams have straight up recommended not having AI take over certain processes for a variety of reasons (cost, time, complexity, etc.).

2) And even if it could, the evidence out there that AI can do these jobs as well as experienced professionals - or, heck, just laypeople - is paltry. Just look at all the recent tests about agentic AI, or recent reporting on how poorly AI does when you want it to do your grocery shopping for you.

Having said that, while many AI use cases in entertainment are worrisome, the kerfuffle about its use to make more authentic accents in The Brutalist seems a tad silly. It's not like this was stealing jobs, though it does raise reasonable questions about performance authenticity.

AI composers are definitely coming though, and I would absolutely expect Bleeding Fingers to experiment with having AI fill in on the lower-profile work they take on, if they haven't done so already. Hans has never been gun-shy about experimenting with new tech anyway.

I do wonder if awards entities will start making rules on the percentage of a score's runtime that was made via AI assistance, similar to the current Academy rules on the use of preexisting themes.

> With half of my consulting projects over the last year-plus having some
> flavor of AI to them, it's worth adding a few things on this topic.

Interesting! It sounds like you may also work in the tech/IT sector? Yeah, lately on new technology projects "...oh, and make sure it has AI!" has been tacked on to the requirements list, but with the persons added it having no clear understanding of what AI is or what they actually want to do with it. It's just a buzzword, and they want to have it. They also seem to think it will somehow work magic and replace people completely. Which it won't. At this stage, AI is more of a useful tool to assist humans then to actually replace them. I use it to expedite crafting PowerShell commands/scripts, lookup syntax, or, uh, to help me help my daughter with her math and science homework, lol.

Daughter: "Hey Dad, can you check my chemistry homework for me?"
Homework: A student placed 50.00 mL of a water sample into an Erlenmeyer flask. Three drops of K2CrO4(aq) were then added to the flask. The buret contained 0.080 M AgNO3(aq) as the titrant. If 15.70 mL of titrant was used to reach the end point, calculate the amount of chloride ions in mg/L found in the sample.
Me: "Uhhh, suuuuuure. Just, uh, give me a minute." *opens ChatGPT*

> 1) It was in the news this week that the CEO of the fintech Klarna said
> that he believes AI can do all the jobs humans do. This is of course
> straight nonsense. My teams have straight up recommended not having
> AI take over certain processes for a variety of reasons (cost, time,
> complexity, etc.).

Yeeaaah, I'm kinda bothered by just how enthusiastic management has been at the prospect of eliminating jobs using AI. Just what do they think is gonna happen if/when no one has a job anymore?

> 2) And even if it could, the evidence out there that AI can do these jobs
> as well as experienced professionals - or, heck, just laypeople -
> is paltry. Just look at all the recent tests about agentic AI, or recent
> reporting on how poorly AI does when you want it to do your grocery
> shopping for you.

> Having said that, while many AI use cases in entertainment are worrisome,
> the kerfuffle about its use to make more authentic accents in The
> Brutalist seems a tad silly. It's not like this was stealing jobs,
> though it does raise reasonable questions about performance authenticity.

Yeah, that goes back to my prior point about it being a good tool that has valid use cases that don't involve simply replacing the humans.

> AI composers are definitely coming though, and I would absolutely expect
> Bleeding Fingers to experiment with having AI fill in on the lower-profile
> work they take on, if they haven't done so already. Hans has never been
> gun-shy about experimenting with new tech anyway.

Hmm, you bring up a fine point in the possibility that some of these production line-style composing conglomerates may possibly already be using AI and just not publicly copping to it yet.

> I do wonder if awards entities will start making rules on the percentage
> of a score's runtime that was made via AI assistance, similar to the
> current Academy rules on the use of preexisting themes.

I kinda hope so. I'm actually generally a pretty tech-positive person who enjoys the new capabilities new tech often brings, and AI definitely has already shown it has useful applications, but I'm also concerned about the overzealous pursuit of AI to replace human creativity.

As an aside, one use-case for AI that I'm actually hoping to eventually see would be in AI generated dialogue in video games that would allow for NPCs to address the player character with a player chosen proper name rather than a nickname like "Rookie" or "Hero of Whateversville", and to allow for more interactive NPC conversations.

> Interesting! It sounds like you may also work in the tech/IT sector?

I've spent my entire career to date in strategy and management consulting, nearly all of that in the P&C insurance sector, and in the back half of my career (and especially since the onset of the pandemic) tech and transformation work took on a greater role in the projects I was assigned to. I'd argue this probably should've happened earlier, but there is always a degree of apprehension in being attached to something you know next to nothing about. Thankfully I got over that.

> Yeah, lately on new technology projects '...oh, and make sure it has AI!' has been tacked on to the requirements list, but with the persons added it having no clear understanding of what AI is or what they actually want to do with it. It's just a buzzword, and they want to have it. They also seem to think it will somehow work magic and replace people completely. Which it won't.

Recently I sat on an industry call focused on AI, and at least the panelists there were smart enough to state that AI is often only as good as the underlying data you feed into it.

> Yeeaaah, I'm kinda bothered by just how enthusiastic management has been at the prospect of eliminating jobs using AI. Just what do they think is gonna happen if/when no one has a job anymore?

Yes, you do have to admit it is strange that the most enthusiastic acolytes for widespread AI adoption also tend to be the people who want to cut social safety nets.

In my opinion, using AI generated music to imitate human composers is a crime against humanity, much like using AI art to create art for things like NFTs and AI voices being used to scam people. Serious handicaps need to be placed on AI software, and soon. As much as i sometimes disagree with Hans’ business practices, in this scenario, he is without a doubt the lesser of two evils.