The Fantastic Four: First Steps is Michael Giacchino’s seventh score for Marvel, including three Spider-Mans, Doctor Strange, Thor: Love and Thunder and Werewolf By Night, which he also directed.
Or, is it his eighth? Giacchino said during a panel at Deadline’s Sound & Screen: Film event that he essentially wrote two complete scores.
“I actually wrote a whole other score for this film that you probably won’t ever hear,” Giacchino said. “I just remember seeing it for the first time with the music and something didn’t feel right.”
Giacchino wrote a lot of the initial score prior to principal photography. He joined the project when Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige asked him to compose music for the film’s Comic-Con presentation. By the time they filmed, he had written the themes for Galactus and the Silver Surfer.
“What was really fun was [director] Matt [Shakman] took that to the set,” Giacchino said. “It was helpful to them to figure out oh, that’s the movie we’re making. This is the tone. It’s so rare to do that. I think anyone who’s making movies should hire the composer first and then have them write their suite because then they can all get on the same page on day 1.”
Still, First Steps evolved throughout production. So when Giacchino saw the final cut, he no longer felt his music was appropriate.
“Musically, when I’m writing, I like to start at the beginning and go through the end,” he said. “I had built this out based on one version of the movie. When I watched that music against the new version of the movie, I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is not working for me.’”
Giacchino hinted that this is also not the first time that has happened with one of his scores. Feige gave Giacchino one of the film’s pickup days to rerecord.
“You just never know,” he said. “What we do is a best guess. Everyone is taking their best guess at something and you’re not always right.”
Next, Feige will direct his follow-up to Werewolf By Night, which he still touts.
“If you haven’t seen it, watch it. It’s on Disney+ if you still have that,” joking about subscriber cancellations at the streamer in the wake of Jimmy Kimmel’s brief suspension.
Directing was Giacchino’s original goal.
“As a composer, it’s a very solitary thing,” he said. “I missed that interaction with a group of people. To me, movies are the greatest group art form there is. You get to work with every amazing artist known to man. I’m going to be directing for Warner Bros. It’s going to be really fun and I can’t wait to tell you more about all that.”
Check back Monday for the panel video.
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