During this 23-year period, Bill Conti scored no less than 15 projects for director John G. Avildsen. The only two movies he didn't do was A Night In Heaven (very cool score by Jan Hammer 1983) and The Power Of One (Hans Zimmer 1992).
Any idea why Conti didn't do these ones? Did Avildsen want to work with other composers?
I have no idea but my guess is that Conti could have been unavailable. He probably was scoring other movies at the time.
By the way it would be fun if someone (Silva perhaps) could do a CD with music from Avildsens movies featuring the music by Conti. Just like the Spielberg/Williams and Zemeckis/Silvestri CD`s that are out there.
In 1983, Conti scored THE RIGHT STUFF, BAD BOYS, the TV-movie "The Terry Fox Story," and two episodes of the series "Emerald Point N.A.S." Doing THE RIGHT STUFF instead of A NIGHT IN HEAVEN worked out for him at Oscar time.
Well, to try to answer my own question: Of course Conti may have been unavailable, but at the same time I can't really see him do a synthpop-score like Hammer's, or an African-based score like Zimmer's. So perhaps Avildsen found other composers for these projects that he thought would be more suitable.
It may have been more the influence of John Belushi than Avildsen wanting to branch out with other composers, but Tom Scott's rejected score for NEIGHBORS is marvelous (and I may be one of the few who likes Conti's replacement).