The Boston Globe is reporting today that film score composer John Williams will be leading the Boston Pops in a concert series starting this Tuesday ,featuring new pieces of his score to the upcoming Indiana Jones film, as well as selections from his scores of Star Wars and the Harry Potter series. The paper notes “actress Lynn Redgrave will join in each night to narrate what’s being called the “Harry Potter Grande Suite.” Of interest, the article then goes on to mention that the legendary composer is not slowing down, as Mr. Williams has work remaining on “soundtracks for “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” “Jurassic Park IV,” and “Superman: Man of Steel” all scheduled for his touch.”
As readers will recall, in a formal press release issued in November of last year by Warner Brothers, it indicated the score for HBP was to be composed by Nicholas Hooper, who scored Order of the Phoenix. However we do not know if this new report (if accurate) just means John Williams will be contributing a few pieces to the overall score of HBP, or will now be handling the entire music for the sixth Harry Potter film. We are working to find out more about this, and will of course update with more when we can.
I highly doubt that one newspaper article is going to supercede a WB press report and a statement from Hooper’s representatives. The article also attributes that Williams is working on HBP to the very vague “industry reports,” which probably means nothing. I don’t think he’s scoring the film.
This just sounds like lazily-researched speculation to me. How can they say he’s “scheduled” to be scoring Jurassic Park IV and Superman? Neither of those films even have casts, scripts or directors firmly attached, and might not even exist; moreover, all of those films are new entries in series that Williams USED to score, but has since moved on from. Most importantly, though, we KNOW that Nicholas Hooper is scoring HBP: WB confirmed it ages ago, and all the supplemental evidence corroborates this including the documentation ClaireFron just posted. As far as I’m concerned, this isn’t even a matter of debate; The Boston Globe are dead wrong on this one, plain and simple, and should be ashamed of such lazy journalism.
Not that I’m saying I wouldn’t like another Williams score, of course; for me, the musical high water mark of the franchise remains his PoA score by some distance, and I can’t really imagine it being topped. Certainly, Hooper’s OotP was a very accomplished soundtrack, and if he’s to see the series through to the end (which he likely will, with long-term collaborator David Yates in charge) then I’ll be perfectly happy, but that doesn’t mean I would ever say know to another Williams effort. Still, I’m not going to let something as insubstantial, flimsy and blatantly false as this article raise my hopes…
He has such memorable tunes that , it would be great if he came back or at least contributed to the score. Every time I hear Hedwigs theme we have him to thank for that he gave the theme song to the movies. Along with star wars, Jaws, Indy, Jurassic Park. He truely is great. The others are good to though.
John Williams is amazing but this report must be totally untrue.
From the little I know of Yates, he would never willingly relinquish key members of his team like Editor Mark Day or Composer Nicholas Hooper.
As wonderfully talented as Mr. Williams is, a film by David Yates will sound better with a score by Hooper, just as a Spielberg films are lifted by a score from Williams.
I think that’s just a mistake. Hooper has been scheduled for ages to do HBP; I think they meant DH, which Williams said he’d like to score. (and IMO, Doyle’s score for GoF was great, especially his Hogwarts Hymn, heard over the credits, I think. I wasn’t crazy about Hoop’s OotP music ,at least on the CD, it was OK for the film.)
Hmmmm . . . I LOVE Williams’ scores, and imho PoA was one of the best “stand-alone” scores in the HP series. BUT, his series filmwork is always so derivative that you miss out on having a unique flavour to each film. Although it won’t happen, I would love to see Pat Doyle (GoF) come back for DH as his score so far has been the darkest and most like what I envision for DH.
For HBP: Hooper’s OotP score was fun, so I wouldn’t mind hearing his take on it. His “dramatic” themes were a bit wanting, and that is where the hand of John Williams would be better appreciated. I do find it fascinating that Williams said he WANTED to come back to HP. You don’t often hear statements like that.
ponders and replays “Window to the Past” & “Harry in Winter” *
Since Williams composed the original, instantly recognized Harry Potter theme that everyone else must incorporate and build on in order to keep the movies sounding familiar, then I suppose you can say that Williams has had a hand and will have a hand in the music for all the movies.
Williams has so damn many Oscars I wonder if he uses them for doorstops?
I think it would be fantastic if John Williams did create the soundtrack to HBP – he is an amazing composer and has done such a great job with the first three films. He is legendary and if he cannot/does not come back for HBP then I really hope that he will at least write the DH soundtrack. I’m sure he would love to compose the music for the finale of the HP series because he has started it off so well and it would be so interesting for the audience to see how it compares with PS.
"Awfully sorry, boys, but I'll have to put a Memory Charm on you now. Can't have you blabbing my secrets all over the place. I'd never sell another book --"[br]Harry reached his wand just in time. Lockhart had barely raised his, when Harry bellowed, [i]"E
I highly doubt that one newspaper article is going to supercede a WB press report and a statement from Hooper’s representatives. The article also attributes that Williams is working on HBP to the very vague “industry reports,” which probably means nothing. I don’t think he’s scoring the film.