When it comes to movie music these days, few are more prolific and highly regarded than Michael Giacchino.
With multiple Pixar, “Star Trek” and “Planet of the Apes” films under his belt over the past ten years, he’s become the go to guy for blockbusters with “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” “The Batman,” “Jurassic World: Dominion” and “Lightyear” all recently using his musical talents.
Doing promotional interviews recently, he spoke with Collider about his body of work and was asked whether there were any projects he worked on that he’s especially proud of but hadn’t received the acclaim he thinks the film’s deserved.
He revealed there are two such titles that stick with him that he’s proud of, not just for the quality of his score but the overall production – Andrew Stanton’s “John Carter” and the Wachowski’s “Speed Racer”:
“There’s a couple of them. And it’s not just the music that I’m proud of. It’s the movie itself, the movies. I always feel like John Carter got a bad rap. I feel like Speed Racer got a bad rap. And those are two movies I absolutely love, and I know that they have their fan base, they have their ardent supporters, which I’m very, very happy about.
You don’t work any less on a movie, work any less hard on a movie. Everything you do is really hard and you’re always trying to make the best thing you can, so when it doesn’t quite hit the mark the way you’re hoping or when it’s not received the way you are, you’re always thinking about, ‘God, so many people worked so hard on this thing.’
But the silver lining is all those people that are out there in the world, and through Twitter and the internet now, you know that it was embraced in a certain way, and over time things get looked at differently. So those are probably two that come to my head I think.”
While both films were seen as costly flops at the time along with landing mixed reviews, both also have staunch defenders amongst cinephiles and have seen reassessments in the years since with appreciation for the filmmaking on offer.
You can next hear Giacchino’s work with “Thor: Love and Thunder” when it hits cinemas on July 8th.
