Hans Zimmer Replacing John Williams: Should Fans Panic?

David: Welcome back to The Sorting Room. Oh man, do we have a good one today. Becca Hartwell: David, I have been thinking about this episode all week, like legitimately losing sleep. David: Laughing same. Okay, so get this. HBO just confirmed that Hans Zimmer and his Bleeding Fingers collective are scoring the Harry Potter series, all seven seasons. Becca Hartwell: Surprising, replacing John Williams. David: Replacing John Williams. Variety had it in January, Deadline confirmed it. Zimmer, Kara Talve and Ane Rozman, that's the team! Becca Hartwell: And that name drop matters because a lot of people are asking who actually writes this music. David: Which is exactly where we're going. Plot twist, Talve and Rozman aren't rookies. These two built the score for Prehistoric Planet from scratch using instruments made from actual dinosaur bones! Becca Hartwell: Still the wildest sentence in music. David: Right? And then Becca Hartwell: Yeah. David: there's the Hedwig's Theme question. Becca Hartwell: Okay, this is where it gets good. Does that theme belong to the story or to the films? David: HBO committed to an original score, so what does that actually mean for the most recognizable eight notes in modern fantasy? Becca Hartwell: We dig into that, and we use Man of Steel as the closest comparison we've got—Zimmer replacing Williams on Superman—to Speaker 3: see what lessons we can learn from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Becca Hartwell: To figure out what might actually happen. David: Becca, you have a very specific opinion about that. Becca Hartwell: I have several opinions, very loudly held. David: Good, save them. We end with a big open question every Potter fan is sitting with right now, so stay with us. Becca Hartwell: Let's get into it. David: First segment up now. Okay, so get this. January 15th, HBO drops the announcement. Hans Zimmer and Bleeding Fingers Music will score the entire Harry Potter series, all seven seasons. Becca Hartwell: I saw it. My phone blew up. David: My first reaction was, wait, is this actually a huge deal or are we just reacting to a famous name? Becca Hartwell: That's exactly where I landed. Like, yes, Zimmer is Zimmer, but is this news? News, or is it a press release with good branding? David: Okay, hear me out, because I thought the same thing for about four minutes, and then I read it again. Becca Hartwell: And? David: Variety reported it straight from the announcement: Zimmer, Kara Tolve, and Hans Rozman issued a joint statement saying the score will, quote, honor what has come before. That phrase is doing a lot of work. Becca Hartwell: That's the most careful sentence I've ever heard in a press release. David: Right. It does not say Hedwig's theme comes back. It does not say it goes away. It says, honor what has come before. Becca Hartwell: Which means anything. David: It means nothing and everything at once. That is franchise lawyer speak. Becca Hartwell: Okay, okay. But here's my pushback. Every big show gets a big composer name attached. It's a marketing move half the time. Why is this different? David: Because, Becca Hartwell, this is the first time in 20 years Speaker 3: that the franchise has come back. David: In 25 years that John Williams has zero involvement at any level. Becca Hartwell: Wait, say that again? David: Zero. Not even a courtesy credit. Not a successor composer who was publicly handed the baton by Williams himself. According to Deadline, the films scored by Williams set a musical standard that now just ends. Becca Hartwell: I mean, that is significant. Williams only scored the first three films, but- But Doyle, Hooper, Desplat-they all worked within the grammar he built. David: Exactly, and Zimmer's entire musical language is different. Becca Hartwell: Right. David: We're not talking about a continuation here. Becca Hartwell: Okay, I'll give you that-that's a real break. David: And look, Deadline confirmed Zimmer has scored more than five hundred projects. This is not a guy who just wanders into things. This is a deliberate hire. Becca Hartwell: Sure, but deliberate for what? That's the part I can't figure out from the announcement. Smith alone. David: That's the exact right question, because Zimmer isn't really one composer. He runs a collective. Talve Rozman are the ones doing the episode-by-episode work. Zimmer's the creative direction and the name on the door. Becca Hartwell: Which is fine for a film. David: Mm-hmm. Becca Hartwell: For seven seasons of television, that's a different ask. David: A completely different ask. And the statement they released, the one about honoring the legacy, tells us nothing about how they actually plan to do it. Do it. Becca Hartwell: So the announcement says who, but it doesn't say how. David: Plot twist: that's the whole story, because those are two completely different composers with two completely different philosophies, and Harry Potter's musical identity was built on one of them. Becca Hartwell: And they picked the other one. David: So what does Zimmer's actual approach even mean for a franchise built on melody? And what happens to the one piece of music that three billion people already know? people already have in their heads. Becca Hartwell: Yeah, that's the question, isn't it? David: So here's the thing about what makes this announcement genuinely complicated: Williams and Zimmer don't just have different styles, they have fundamentally different jobs. Becca Hartwell: Right, and that's the crux of it. Williams works alone, pencil and paper. The score you hear is 100% him. Zimmer runs a collective. David: And it's a big collective. Deadline confirmed it's Zimmer, co-founded with Russell Emanuel and Steven Kofsky. They've scored over 500 TV and movie projects. projects. Becca Hartwell: So Hans Zimmer scored it already means something different than it did for Williams on Philosopher's Stone. David: Exactly. And the philosophy underneath is different too. Williams builds around leitmotifs, named melodic phrases tied to specific characters, places, ideas. Hedwig's theme is literally a leitmotif for the magical world itself. Becca Hartwell: And here's the proof that it works: Williams only scored the first three films, then Patrick Doyle, Nicholas Hooper, Alexandre... Standard display all took over, and every single one of them kept David: Mm-hmm. Becca Hartwell: Hedwig's theme-every film! David: All eight films-that's not coincidence, that's a melody so load bearing that later composers felt they couldn't remove it without the whole thing collapsing. Becca Hartwell: It's basically structural-like you can't cut a wall and expect the house to stand. David: And chuckling-and that's what makes the Zimmer approach the interesting part. According to a piece on his composing process: Zimmer describes what he does as building a "sound world" rather than composing a set of themes. Becca Hartwell: Okay, so explain that, because I know what it sounds like in Interstellar-that's texture, atmosphere, emotional weight, not a melody you'd hum on the way out. David: Exactly, and that works brilliantly for Interstellar, for Dune, but Harry Potter's emotional grammar has always been melody first. The Diagon Alley theme Speaker 3: plays throughout the entire franchise. David: Team in Philosopher's Stone, Dumbledore's farewell in Half-Blood Prince, displays Obliviate in Deathly Hallows, those are melodic anchors. They're how you know where you are emotionally in the story. Becca Hartwell: So the question is whether Zimmer even wants to do that, or whether he's going to build something atmospheric and say, this is the new sound of Harry Potter. David: And honestly, either could work, but they'd be totally different shows. Becca Hartwell: And Seven Seasons is a long commitment to a sound world that that might not connect the same way Hedwig's theme did. David: Hmm, yeah, because here's the other piece of this: with Williams, he's writing every note; with Zimmer's collective, the episode by episode workload lands on co composers. Becca Hartwell: Which brings up an obvious question: if Zimmer is creative director and final sign off, who is actually writing the music for season three, episode seven? David: And that's where this gets really interesting, Becca Hartwell. Well, because the answer to that question is basically two people, and their work history is wild. Becca Hartwell: The Prehistoric Planet composers. David: Kara Talvey and Anze Rozman, and what they did on that show, let's just say it reframes everything about how this Harry Potter score might actually get made. Speaker 4: Tinkerty tonk! David: So, the ghost composer argument. You see it all over the comment sections. Zimmer puts his name on it. Some unknown person writes the actual music. Becca Hartwell: Yeah, and if you're making that argument about Harry Potter, you have to reckon with Prehistoric Planet first, because Talve and Rozman didn't just score that show. They built custom instruments out of actual dinosaur bones and fossils to do it. David: Hold on. Literal bones? Becca Hartwell: Literal. A moose tibia strung with a cello string, called the Raptor Violin; a Triceratops skull body with dinosaur claw tuning pegs, the Triceratone." Berklee Valencia reported that Rozman designed nine original instruments across the project, three years of work. David: Okay, that is not ghost writer behavior. That is a composer asking "How does sixty six million years ago sound?" and then going to Arizona to find the answer. Becca Hartwell: Right-and per Berklee Valencia everything they wrote went through Zimmer and Russell Emanuel before it left the building, so the accountability is real. Zimmer wrote the central theme, Talve and Rozman's scored every episode. David: Which is almost certainly the Harry Potter template, too. Becca Hartwell: That's the model. Zimmer anchors the main theme, they carry the episode by episode work, and these are not people who stumbled into the gig. Bleeding Fingers has a long relationship with the BBC. See Planet Earth Two, Frozen Planet Two, Planet Earth Three. David: Okay, but hear me out. Those are all nature docs. Atmospheric scoring is kind of the whole job there. Harry Potter is different. You need a theme a kid can hum walking out of a cinema. Becca Hartwell: I hear you, but Prehistoric Planet wasn't just atmosphere either. According to the Berklee Valencia piece, they used individual instruments to characterize specific dinosaurs. The raptor violin tracks the dromaeosaurids—that is light motif thinking, David. David: Okay, yeah, that's actually a fair point. Becca Hartwell: Write it down, it won't happen again. David: Very funny. So the resume holds up, the process is legit, my remaining issue is scale. Seven seasons, hundreds of episodes. Williams scored eight films over a decade and barely kept up. Becca Hartwell: And that's where the collective model either proves itself itself or doesn't. Prehistoric Planet was two seasons, Harry Potter is seven. David: Which brings us back to a question we can't answer yet, because all of this-the credentials, the process, the bones, and the fossils-it only matters if audiences actually transfer their emotional connection to a new sound. Becca Hartwell: And that means confronting the thing nobody wants to say out loud: David: Hedwig's Theme. Becca Hartwell: Hedwig's Theme. David: So here's the real question underneath all of that: Hedwig's Theme. Becca Hartwell: Right, and this is the one that keeps me up at night. David: Okay, so here's the thing people keep getting wrong: Warner Bros. owns that theme, not John Williams. He composed it under contract; the copyright sits with the studio. Becca Hartwell: Which means HBO could license it if they wanted. David: They could, but the announcement reported by Variety and Deadline is unambiguous: "Original Score." Not a reimagined score, not a tribute score: original. Becca Hartwell: And the trailer used Williams' theme, but trailers do that constantly; trailers license music the actual show never touches. David: Mm-hmm, so the trailer proves nothing; the announcement is what matters. Becca Hartwell: Here's my problem with cutting it entirely: every composer after Williams (Doyle and Goblet of Fire, Desplat in Deathly Hallows)--they all came back to Hedwig's Theme at key emotional moments, not because they lacked ideas, because that melody is the musical signal for Signal for the Wizarding World David: It's load bearing infrastructure, you pull it out, something has to replace it. Becca Hartwell: And Zimmer has to build that signal from scratch across seven seasons. David: Seven seasons. Becca Hartwell: I know. David: Okay, but here's where I push back: does Hedwig's Theme belong to Harry Potter or does it belong to the films? Becca Hartwell: Say more David: Open chapter one of Philosopher's Stone. There is no theme music. J.K. Rowling never wrote a single note. Note.--That melody was invented for the 2001 film. It's a film artifact. Becca Hartwell: Okay, I hear you. David: So if HBO is adapting the books not remaking the films, maybe cutting Hedwig's theme is actually the Becca Hartwell: cleanest No! David: possible signal. This is a different thing. Becca Hartwell: I'm on both sides a little bit, because-yes, intellectually you're right, but emotionally that theme has been attached to the story for twenty five years; millions of people are not making that distinction. David: That's fair. Becca Hartwell: The Man of Steel comparison is interesting here: Zimmer replaced Williams' Superman theme in 2013, fan reaction was genuinely divided, but his score became memorable on its own terms eventually. David: Eventually-that's the word-it took years-and Harry Potter is seven Becca Hartwell: How? David: seasons of television. You don't get years to win the audience over, you get the first episode. Becca Hartwell: You get the first scene. David: You get the first scene. Speaker 5: Yes! Becca Hartwell: So the Hedwig problem is a really timing problem. Zimmer needs to establish a new musical identity fast, across a format that rewards patience in storytelling but punishes it in scoring. David: And look, Dune proves he can build a complete sonic identity from nothing. Nothing, that score works. Becca Hartwell: It does; but Dune had no competing theme living rent free in everyone's head since they were eight years old. David: That is the most accurate sentence anyone has said on this podcast. Becca Hartwell: The books are silent, the films are very loud, and Zimmer has to figure out which one he's answering to. David: Which honestly sets up everything we haven't talked about yet. How do you score seven full seasons of prestige television when When audiences show up with Twenty-five years of musical expectations already baked in. So here's the real test case, right? Man of Steel. Zimmer dropped Williams' Superman theme entirely in 2013, built something from scratch. Fans were split, but over time that score held up. Becca Hartwell: It held up because the movie gave it room. Seven seasons of Harry Potter? That's a different animal. You're scoring 100 plus hours, and the first episode has to land immediately. David: Right. And Deadline confirmed Zimmer has already started work. work, so this isn't theoretical; the music is being written. Becca Hartwell: Which means the first teaser is coming faster than people think, and that teaser is going to answer a lot of questions without actually saying a word. David: Okay, so here's the question I want to leave people with: that first teaser drops, you're a fan, you've had Hedwig's theme in your head since you were ten, does Zimmer play it or does he come out swinging with something completely new? Becca Hartwell: I go back and forth on this every time I think about it. David: Me too, honestly. Becca Hartwell: Like, the safe move is play it. Audiences exhale, they trust you. But if Zimmer's building a seven season world, David: Yeah. Becca Hartwell: playing it in the teaser basically tells everyone the old sound is still the anchor. David: And if he doesn't play it? Becca Hartwell: The internet combusts by morning. David: Yeah, yeah. So what do you actually think they do? Becca Hartwell: Honestly, I think they bury a fragment of it. Just enough to say, we heard you. But not enough to commit. David: Or they go cold. New theme, no apology, full Dune energy. Becca Hartwell: And that's the version I kind of want to see. David: Same, but I have no idea which one we're getting. And that's exactly where this thing stands right now. OK, so that's a wrap on this one. And honestly, Becca Hartwell, I keep coming back to that central question we landed on. Becca Hartwell: The teaser. Does it open with Hedwig's theme or does Zimmer come out swinging with something brand new? David: Right. Because according to Variety and Deadline, HBO committed to a completely original score. 25 years of John Williams, Zero involvement this time. Becca Hartwell: And we spent a good chunk of this episode establishing why that matters. Those melodic anchors as As David put it, aren't decoration, David: Right. Becca Hartwell: they're how you track where you are emotionally in the story. David: Talve and Rozman proved with Prehistoric Planet they can build a sound world from nothing. The question is whether Harry Potter's emotional DNA needs melody first. Becca Hartwell: We do not agree on that, for the record. David: We absolutely do not. And that's the fun part. If you've got a take, find us on social at TheSortingRoom. Becca Hartwell: Follow wherever you listen, leave a review if you're feeling generous. Chris, we'll see you in the sorting room. David: Thanks for being here.