Famed Oscar-winning 91-year-old film composer John Williams has confirmed that he has completed his score for the upcoming James Mangold-directed “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” due in cinemas this Summer.
Williams sat down for a rare interview with Variety to discuss his work on Steven Spielberg’s serious awards contender “The Fablemans” and talk about his upcoming concert plans.
During the chat, he says he wrapped his work on the next Indy film on February 10th after beginning recordings for it on June 28th last year and continuing on and off since then.
Williams says he’s created “an hour and a half of music, maybe more” for the score. He adds it’ll mix plenty of new material with a dash of the old:
“I’m quite happy with it. There’s a lot of new material. The old material works very well as a touchstone of memory, but I had great fun, and I have a theme that I’ve written for Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the wonderful actress.”
Williams introduced her theme last summer at the Hollywood Bowl with clips of that performance quickly going viral online. He’s subsequently played it with the San Francisco Symphony and will include it in upcoming concerts.
A while back Williams made headlines indicating the fifth Indy would be the last of his 100-plus film scores, but then walked it back a bit in an onstage interview with Spielberg. Asked about his earlier retirement comments, Williams says:
“I might have meant that at the moment, but you never want to say no unequivocally. If Steven or another director should come along with something that is so moving that you want to drop the phone and rush to the piano and have it all come out — should that happen, with the appropriate energy needed to do it, I wouldn’t rule out a situation like that.”
Williams has also seen a rough cut of the film and offered his take:
“Harrison is wonderful in it. He looks great, he moves beautifully. The best part of it for me is the writing and the interplay of dialogue between Harrison and Phoebe, like the old-style Hepburn-and-Tracy kind of bickering. It’s witty and bright and snappy, like a duet that goes on for two hours.”
He goes on to say director James Mangold has “done a very, very expert job on a very difficult kind of film to make”. Disney will release “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” in cinemas on June 30th.
