THE TOP FORTY COUNTDOWN 2003: PART ONE

By Scott Bettencourt

I know, it doesn't seem like a whole year since my last round of ill-informed and highly biased rankings of the most employable composers in Hollywood (it's actually been fourteen months, but who's counting?), but it is in fact that time again. So begin writing your angry letters -- now!

2002 RANKING: Not ranked
AGE: 37
REPRESENTATION: Gorfaine/Schwartz
ONGOING FILMMAKER RELATIONSHIPS: Joel Silver, Mike Judge
FAN FAVORITE: Gods and Generals
TYPECAST IN: Comedy, Horror
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Dante's Peak--67 (U.S. gross in millions)
2. Beavis and Butt-head Do America--63
3. Alien Resurrection--47
4. Thirteen Ghosts--41
5. I Still Know What You Did Last Summer--40
6. Cradle 2 the Grave--34
7. Ghost Ship--30
8. Jane Austen's Mafia--19
9. Josie and the Pussycats--14
10. Gods and Generals -- 12

Though Frizzell ranked #34 on the never published 1997 edition of this article, the negative reaction to Alien Resurrection (both the film and Frizzell's score) and his subsequent failure to garner similarly high-profile projects led to his omission from last year's list. However, Frizzell got the job as composer of Joel Silver's remake of Thirteen Ghosts when Don Davis became unavailable, and has since become one of Silver's regular composers on projects like Ghost Ship and Cradle 2 the Grave, insuring him steady work with one of Hollywood's most prolific and colorful producers. Frizzell also managed to score the majority of the Gettysburg prequel Gods and Generals (Randy Edelman shares the credit), and even though the film was poorly received it's rare for a modern-day composer to get the opportunity to score a ten-hour historical epic. Okay, I know it was actually less than four hours, but it sure seemed like ten hours.

2002 RANKING: Not ranked
AGE: 39
REP: Blue Focus
RELATIONSHIPS: Bryan Singer, Steve Miner
FAN FAVORITE: The Usual Suspects
TYPECAST IN: Thrillers
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. The Cable Guy--60
2. Halloween H20--55
3. Lake Placid--31
4. The Usual Suspects--23
5. Urban Legends: Final Cut--21
6. Eight Legged Freaks--17
7. Apt Pupil--8
8. Trapped--7
9. Bubble Boy--5
10. Goodbye, Lover--1

This rising young composer (who is also a first-rate editor) took a break from scoring other people's movies to direct the disappointing Urban Legends: Final Cut, but is back on the scoring stage with a vengeance. He had three major releases last year and did good work on all of them, but it may not be a good sign when your best film of a given year is Eight Legged Freaks. However, he has the most ambitious and promising assignment of his career thus far, with the imminent release of X-Men 2 for which the composer promises there will be NO ROCK SONGS. Hear that, Hollywood?

WHAT'S NEXT: X-Men 2

2002 RANKING: Not ranked
AGE: 41
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
RELATIONSHIPS: Spike Lee, Kasi Lemmons
FAN FAVORITE: Malcolm X
TYPECAST IN: "Urban" stories
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Barbershop--75
2. Next Friday--57
3. Malcolm X--48
4. Jungle Fever--31
5. Love & Basketball--27
6. Summer of Sam--19
7. Sugar Hill--18
8. Original Sin--16
9. Eve's Bayou--14
10. 25th Hour--13

This acclaimed jazz musician is more steadily employed than ever as a film composer, and though his latest scores haven't been as creatively exciting as his powerful work for Malcolm X or his striking score for the little seen The Caveman's Valentine, he's been working steadily in a wide variety of genres on high profile films. His biggest hit so far was the sleeper comedy Barbershop, while his brooding, symphonic score for 25th Hour was one of the most controversial scores of 2002, as critics found it either powerful or overbearing. Already this year, he's produced an electronic score for the uneven but memorable L.A. cop drama Dark Blue.

WHAT'S NEXT: People I Know

2002 RANKING: Not ranked
AGE: Unavailable
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
FAN FAVORITE: The Time Machine
TYPECAST IN: Action
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. The Time Machine--55
2. The Recruit--52
3. K19: The Widowmaker--35
4. Basic--25 (as of 4/20/03)
5. Equilibrium--1

For a composer whose first high profile solo score was released barely a year ago, Badelt is employed with impressive regularity, though his subsequent work hasn't shown the variety of his breakthrough score for The Time Machine. K19: The Widowmaker was a little on the heavy handed side, and his music for The Recruit and Basic was effective but hard to distinguish from a lot of other contemporary composers (some of them, like Badelt, from the Media Ventures stable). The biggest disappointment was his music for the derivative but entertaining Fahrenheit 451-style sci-fi thriller Equilibrium. Instead of musically depicting the hero's transition from tranquilized supercop to emotional rebel, the score remained at the same emotional and instrumental level throughout, a frustratingly missed opportunity. Nevertheless, Badelt's ability to win high-profile assignments so early in his career warrants his place on this list.

WHAT'S NEXT: Ned Kelly

2002 RANKING: 39
AGE: 55
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
RELATIONSHIPS: Rob Cohen, Roger Birnbaum, Jonathan Lynn, Ivan Reitman, Ronald F. Maxwell
FAN FAVORITES: Gettysburg, Dragon
TYPECAST IN: Comedy
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. XXX--141
2. Ghostbusters II--112
3. The Mask--119
4. Twins--111
5. Kindergarten Cop--91
6. While You Were Sleeping--81
7. The Last of the Mohicans--75
8. Six Days, Seven Nights--74
9. Anaconda--65
10. Shanghai Knights--59

Despite working steadily on a large number of films, Edelman's style rarely moves beyond the oversynthed sound he's been employing for years. Some of his projects seem especially ill-fated: Who is Cletis Tout and National Security spent years on the shelf, while Frank McClusky C.I. went directly to video. Despite his popular score for Gettysburg, he only wrote a small part of the prequel score Gods and Generals (for reasons unknown to this writer), the bulk of the work going to John Frizzell. However, having a blockbuster hit like XXX on his resume--his highest grosser yet -- means he should be working steadily for a while -- if nothing else, one assumes he'll be hired for the inevitable sequel.

WHAT'S NEXT: Connie and Carla

2002 RANKING: 36
AGE: 52
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
5 OSCAR NOMINATIONS
RELATIONSHIPS: Nora Ephron, Stephen Frears, Harold Ramis, Andy Tennant, Richard Attenborough, Nicholas Hytner, Ken Loach
FAN FAVORITE: Dangerous Beauty
TYPECAST IN: Romance
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Sweet Home Alabama--127
2. You've Got Mail--115
3. Groundhog Day--70
4. Ever After--65
5. Gandhió52
6. Anna and the King--39
7. Dangerous Liaisons--32
8. Object of My Affection--29
9. Final Analysis--28
10. Multiplicity--20

This multiple Oscar nominee recently scored his highest grosser so far, the sleeper hit comedy Sweet Home Alabama. His score was a bit on the cutesy side (even for the genre) and won't rate as one of his classic works, but Fenton manages to maintain his serious composer credibility with his ongoing relationship with director Ken Loach (including the upcoming Sweet Sixteen), one of the rare directors whose films have a consistently strong political viewpoint -- about as far from Touchstone Pictures fluff (like Sweet Home Alabama) as you can imagine.

WHAT'S NEXT: Sweet Sixteen

2002 RANKING: 20
AGE: 49
REP: Blue Focus
RELATIONSHIPS: Jerry Bruckheimer
FAN FAVORITE: Armageddon
TYPECAST IN: Action
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Armageddon--201
2. Remember the Titans--115
3. Enemy of the State--111
4. Gone in 60 Seconds--101
5. Con Air--101
6. Deep Blue Seaó73
7. Kangaroo Jack--65
8. The One--43
9. The 6th Day--34
10. Jack Frost--34

Though Rabin has been working steadily, there have been no blockbusters on his resume lately and he's been scoring an eclectic variety of projects. Bad Company was a rare action flop from Jerry Bruckheimer, but Kangaroo Jack managed surprising business despite horrendous reviews (several of which wondered why co-writer Steve Bing would take the credit for such a disreputable screenplay but not for fathering Elizabeth Hurley's child). Because of his rock background, Rabin was an apt choice to score The Banger Sisters, an unusually small-scaled project for the composer, but his music made little impact amongst the inevitable songs. The upcoming World War II adventure The Great Raid is an enviable assignment, though one can only hope he resists the temptation to rock it up too much.

WHAT'S NEXT: The Great Raid

2002 RANKING: 29
AGE: 69
REP: Blue Focus
5 OSCARS, 7 NOMINATIONS
FAN FAVORITES: James Bond scores, Body Heat, Somewhere in Time, Raise the Titanic
TYPECAST IN: Period romance
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Dances With Wolves--184
2. Indecent Proposal--106
3. Out of Africa--87
4. Moonraker--70
5. Thunderball--63
6. Octopussy--62
7. The Deep--61 (approx)
8. The Specialist--57
9. King Kong--52
10. Goldfinger--51

One of world cinema's most respected composers (he even has as many Oscars as John Williams), Barry seems to be retreating from film scoring, with only one new picture in the last few years -- the charming but little seen Enigma, for which he provided a lovely if familiar score. The wonderful new expanded CDs of his classic Bond scores should help bring him more of the attention he deserves, as will his next project, 2004's Pixar feature The Incredibles.

WHAT'S NEXT: The Incredibles

1997 RANKING: 31
AGE: 49
REP: Gorfaine/Schwartz
2 OSCAR NOMINATIONS
RELATIONSHIPS: Kenneth Branagh, Alfonso Cuaron, Regis Wargnier, Mike Newell
FAN FAVORITES: Henry V, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
TYPECAST IN: Oscar bait
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. Bridget Jones's Diary--71
2. Sense and Sensibility--43
3. Gosford Park--41
4. Donnie Brasco--41
5. Dead Again--38
6. Carlito's Way--36
7. Great Expectations--26
8. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein--22
9. Quest For Camelot--22
10. Much Ado About Nothing--22

Despite having scored 2001's acclaimed Best Picture nominee Gosford Park, Doyle has maintained a low Hollywood profile of late (the erotic thriller Killing Me Softly went directly to video), with small scale films on his plate like the upcoming Second Hand Lions (with Michael Caine, Robert Duvall and Haley Joel Osment) and Calendar Girls. However, this could all change if rumors (and the hopes of Doyle's fans) come true and the composer is reunited with director Alfonso Cuaron for a little film called Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

WHAT'S NEXT: Second-Hand Lions, Calendar Girls, The Galindez Mystery

2002 RANKING: 37
AGE: 44
REP: Blue Focus
RELATIONSHIPS: Baz Luhrmann, Philip Noyce
FAN FAVORITE: Moulin Rouge
TYPECAST IN: Action/thrillers
TOP GROSSING FILMS:
1. The Bone Collector--66
2. Moulin Rouge--57
3. William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet--46
4. Kiss of the Dragon--36
5. The Quiet American--11

Despite the acclaim and a Golden Globe for Moulin Rouge, Armstrong has been relatively absent from the scoring scene lately (unlike many film composers, he has a thriving career as a recording artist), and his score for the Oscar-nominated The Quiet American (its release delayed a year because of its anti-American subject matter) sounded suspiciously like The Bone Collector Goes To Nam. This year, Armstrong tackles two widely divergent projects, the British ensemble comedy Love Actually and the megabudget sequel Tomb Raider 2, which should give him a chance to show as much versatility as he can muster up.

WHAT'S NEXT: Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, Love Actually

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