Why did Joel Schumacher give you the job to “Batman Forever”?
Joel told me that he heard the first couple of minutes of “Demolition Man” and hired me on the spot. He was driving his car listening when he made his casting choice at that moment for me.
How was your scoring approach different than the first two “Batman” films?
I made it my business not to look or listen to the other scores. The only similarity was that Joel Schumacher insisted that it be large and orchestral. There was a lot of talk about retaining Danny Elfman’s theme. Danny and Tim Burton did great work together and I thought they were very successful. There was a lot of talk about retaining the theme in marketing, at Texaco, that they retain the original theme. I said, “Look, I might as well write a new theme because there’s a new director, a new Batmobile, and a new Batman.” Joel said, “Go ahead. If I like your theme better, we’ll keep it.” And he liked it better. So then marketing had to change it all.
Somebody asked me, “What’s the Batman theme? Should it be Elfman?” I said, “Look! You and I know what the real Batman theme is. You ask anybody on the street what the Batman theme is, they’re not going to sing Elfman, they’re not going to sing Goldenthal, they’re going to sing Neil Hefti’s theme from the television series.” I was extremely proud about this Batman score.
What are your feelings on interpreting comic book subject matter?
Myth is very important for society, talking about good vs. evil, folly and sin, personal regret, and all of this on big mythic scales. These are people who come in and save everybody, but that also have a double life and a hidden story. It’s that kid sitting and sweltering somewhere in Detroit, hidden in the back pockets, sneaking around during biology or sociology class reading comic books. They’re driven to read about myth and bigger subjects than just geography or a clinical analysis of history. It’s a very important thing to have disposable culture that acts as myth.
It seems as though you had to take a multifaceted approach when scoring “Batman Forever”.
The thing about “Batman Forever” is that there’s many movies in one. It’s a mini cartoon, a mini action-hero situation, and then it has elements from action movies, but it seems very comic-book opera. It’s not just one thing like working on a hard core action movie like “Terminator” that only has a few elements. A “Batman” movie has many elements including comic elements, vast areas of comic element, so you have to use many different approaches and muscles. This takes the ease off of just having to do what an action movie does, which is basically using music like a cheap whore.
Do you think Wagner would have been good at scoring “Batman”?
Yes, he would have been very, very good at scoring “Batman”. I would worry about Wagner doing the comic moments. Certainly Wagner would have understood all of the heroic and villainous moments. Also, he would understand the romantic moments. But I can’t see him scoring characters like Mr. E or the Joker. Back when Wagner lived, I don’t think he’d have a clue on how to score characters like that or the campy parts either. He probably didn’t have a sense of humor which went into camp.
I can see where Wagner’s more dramatic side would be effective, like his take on Gotham City.
The Gotham city feel in my “Batman” has a lot of reference to boogie woogie as well. I’m not so sure Wagner would get that either.
Your themes for this film were very defined. Was it hard to experiment in a film like this?
No. Joel Schumacher chose me because he wanted me to be me. However, the characters in “Batman Forever” were extremely delineated. The hero has to sound heroic, the villain has to sound evil, and the zany character has to sound wacko. All the characters really should be exactly what they are, and a romantic theme should be romantic, so it was very straightforward. But yet I found ways to experiment, especially with the Jim Carrey character Mr. E.
What was it like working with Joel Schumacher?
He would say words like, “Heroic! Just compose something heroic.” I’d come in and he’d listen and say, “Wow.” I enjoyed working with Joel very much. We’ve done three pictures together so far. We’ve done “Batman Forever”, “A Time To Kill”, and “Batman and Robin”. By the second “Batman” film, things weren’t going right. I think somehow he felt an impending doom during that whole time. I was doing really great work and things weren’t going right on the Warner Bros. front, so there were a lot of pressures towards the end. Also simultaneously I was writing my ballet “Othello” and I had to fly back to New York for a weekend to rehearse when he really thought he needed me the most. Things have never been the same since, but I really got along with him very well.