Music from 'WandaVision,' 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier' generating Emmys buzz for Marvel
Jun 04, 2021
Washington [US], June 4 : Marvel's move into streaming with this year's 'WandaVision' and 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier' conclusively demonstrated two things in common. First, that they did not skimp on the music budgets, and second that theme songs could generate as much buzz as the unfolding mysteries surrounding the characters.
According to Variety, both series turned to Marvel vets for their lavish scores. Christophe Beck of the 'Ant-Man' famed worked on 'WandaVision', while Henry Jackman, who has two 'Captain America' films to his credit worked on 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier'.
Both the series demanded music with wide stylistic ranges, from lighthearted sitcom tropes to darker orchestral colors for terrorists and assorted bad guys.
Yet it was the songs for 'WandaVision' that attracted the most attention. All six, by Oscar-winning 'Frozen' songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, lampooned different eras of TV themes.
"We are the rerun generation," laughs Anderson-Lopez, recalling childhood afternoon viewings of "The Brady Bunch" and "Gilligan's Island."
Lopez added, "We got a chance to go through our own sitcom boot camp and watch a zillion opening sequences, [then] writing a number of minute-long songs that had to have a little structure and set a tone."
Beck helped define Wanda's character with the help of a 75-piece Vienna orchestra. He pointed out, "She is not a television show hero. She's a witch. She's got a lot of darkness in her, and her struggle is a major theme in this series. I feel like this score is my most strongly thematic work to date."
For 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier', Jackman's challenge was not only incorporating motifs he'd already written for the 'Winter Soldier' and 'Civil War' movies but also expanding the music pictured on Sam Wilson, who through the run of the show eventually becomes the new Captain America.