Today is the first day of D23, and we are on the floor covering some of the biggest events. One of the first saw us sit down for the Music of Marvel panel hosted by Academy Award winner and composer of the MCU’s Spider-Man trilogy, Michael Giacchino.
He was joined by fellow composers Christophe Beck (Ant-Man trilogy), Laura Karpman (What If…?, Ms. Marvel, The Marvels), and Kristen Anderson Lopez and Bobby Lopez (“Agatha All Along” songwriters) . There they talked about their duties as composers and songwriters and what it takes to put a beautiful arrangement together. The panel also confirmed a few forthcoming projects and a small sample of Giacchino’s Fantastic Four: First Steps score.
5. Laura Karpman to score Captain America: Brave New World
Karpman, whose Marvel Studios credits include What If…?, Ms Marvel, and The Marvels, has been confirmed to compose the score for Captain America: Brave New World. “I know, you know, it’s so funny because I can’t remember the name of this movie, but there was this super soldier guy, and now he’s retiring, he’s passed on to this other guy, yeah, Captain America Brave New World.”
The fourth Captain America film in the MCU stars Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson who was the Falcon before he accepted the role of the title hero when Steve Rogers passed it to him after the events of Avengers: Endgame. Though she couldn’t reveal any details, she expressed her profound excitement to compose the score. “I’m really, really, really, really, really, really, proud to be working on this one, and very excited.”
4. The Weirder the Better
Just like Marvel Studios films are subgernes, each of the films have their own unique sounds and themes. That isn’t any different for the Ant-Man franchise. Beck talked a little bit about how much fun he had weaving in electronic music into the MCU and how playing one sample for Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige went a little too far. “I personally had a soft spot for electronic music. The weirder the better. And Peyton does too. And we got really excited about making some really weird electronic music for him, and it was kind of cool and skittery, but it was also strange,” Beck said. “I remember playing it for some of the producers and Kevin, and, you know, realizing that we had gone a little too far, music made it sound like your speakers were broken. That was not necessarily the intent. So then we kind of did a reset. At that point. We were like, Okay, you went a little too far.”
3. Songwriting and Composing Contrasts
Bobby and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, who had worked with Giacchino on Coco, were also at the panel. Their song “Agatha All Along,” as well as all of the other generational sitcom theme songs heard on WandaVision, was instant hit with MCU fans. While the two return to write some new hits for the Agatha All Along show, they briefly talked about the being about the filmmaking process and how important it is for them to be a part of it so that they can tell a story and make dialogue through lyrics.
“When we’re doing a musical where the characters break into song, we have to kind of be on it from the beginning or close to the beginning, because we’re kind of making dialog through the lyrics and trying to we have to make sure the characters can sing. You know, the type of characters that sing? It’s a whole story process that takes years,” Bobby Lopez said.
“I like to say that we’re we have to think like architects when we’re building a musical, because musicals have a very specific architecture that each song is going to be tapping into the theme in some way, and those are kind of the pillars holding up the building, and you need to be anticipating the motifs as the story is being built,” Kristen Anderson-Lopez said. “Musicals are very iterative, and we have to be there, saying like, Oh, that pillar doesn’t work. Let’s build this pillar up.”
Kristen adds, “The wonderful thing about sometimes working on a TV show like WandaVision or Agatha All Along is that somebody else has done all that architecture work, and then we get to come in like, ‘Okay, we just have to set that tone. And I see a couch here, and just got a pillow, and it’s a it’s a much more fun and joyful assignment.'”
2. Finding The Right Head Space
Composers want to put their best work into any one of the films that they are working on. As such, they empathize with the characters on screen. To articulate that empathy in a musical fashion allows them to go to places where the characters need to go. During the panel, Giacchino spoke about that empathy and putting it into his work. “In order to do your best work, you want to put yourself in the shoes of the characters you’re writing for, which means you have to really, really empathize with the characters on screen, and you have to understand what they’re going through, which then can make you feel like, at times, you’re going through this thing too, because you’re living in this emotional space in order to write the music that you need to do that tells the right story.”
1. Michael Giacchino Teases a Sample of Fantastic Four: First Steps Score
Finally, after it was announced that Giacchino would be scoring Fantastic Four: First Steps, the composer gave a small sample of what to expect from the highly anticipated superhero film. “I love the Fantastic Four so much, I read those comics as a kid, they are just so near and dear to my heart. I can’t show you anything from the film, [but] are you up for listening to something” he asked the audience. Of course, the crowd said yes.
As for the track, it has that ‘60s whimisical superhero vibe, but it isn’t so much like The Incredibles. Instead, it feels more like a deviation of it. From its lighthearted intro, it goes into something more mysterious and ominous but not necessarily dark. One can overhear a choir vocalizing the title heroes during the piece, which is something that is unheard of with these films.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-media-max-width=”560″><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Michael Giacchino’s full score for ‘THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS’ has arrived! 4️⃣💙 <a href=”https://t.co/iY4VwDvSuI”>pic.twitter.com/iY4VwDvSuI</a></p>— Fantastic Four Updates (@F4Update) <a href=”https://twitter.com/F4Update/status/1821989781469065652?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>August 9, 2024</a></blockquote> https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
