James Horner Secretly Composed 'The Magnificent Seven' Score Before He Died
Last month brought the tragic and surprising news that Oscar-winning composer James Horner had died in a plane crash at 61 years old. It was certainly a crushing blow to the world of cinema that had been so touched by his incredible scores for films such as Titanic, Braveheart, A Beautiful Mind, Aliens, Field of Dreams and more.
At the time, it looked like his last two contributions to the big screen as a composer were going to be Antoine Fuqua's boxing drama Southpaw (in theaters this week) and the Chilean miner drama The 33, starring Antonio Banderas. However, we may hear even more new music from James Horner in the remake of The Magnificent Seven, because Horner secretly composed music for the film before he died.
Find out more about how James Horner composed The Magnificent Seven score already after the jump!
Southpaw director Antoine Fuqua has been making the publicity rounds for his film starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a boxer seeking redemption in his life and inside the ring, and he stopped by NPR (via Movies.com) where discussion turned to the work of James Horner. And that's when Fuqua revealed the secret score from the late composer:
"James was an incredible human being. He was a filmmaker through and through. He was one of the most gentle people I've ever met. Even the way he spoke was very soft and thoughtful. He was magical. He had this childlike wonderment in his eyes, but he was an amazing artist, an amazing poet. I loved him and we became friends.
James was a family man. He loved his children. He called me on a Saturday after he watched [Southpaw], and I said 'I don't have any money,; because it wasn't a big budget movie. And he said to me. 'I love the movie. I love the father-daughter relationship. Don't worry about the money, I'm just going to do it.' And he did it for nothing. He paid his crew out of his own pocket.
And I just found out a few days ago – his team flew out here, to Baton Rouge, and they brought me all the music for The Magnificent Seven. He already wrote it for me based on the script. He did it all off the script because he wanted to surprise me. I thought it was a gift or something. And they all came out here and said, 'Antoine, James wrote the music for Magnificent Seven already and it's just glorious.' So that's my memory of James."
That's absolutely wonderful. Horner was so passionate about composing music for The Magnificent Seven that he did it for free, and even paid his crew out of his own pocket. That must be one hell of a script for the film starring Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Wagner Moura, Luke Grimes
The only caveat here might be that since Horner wrote this music based on the script, without seeing any footage (the film is still in production), some of his work might not end up working in the final cut of the movie. But since Horner went out of his way to compose this music for Fuqua, I'm betting some of it will definitely end up in the movie, any might even influence the rest of the score.
That means The Magnificent Seven could be the last time we hear new music from James Horner, unless he was also already working on music for Avatar 2. If that were the case, I feel like James Cameron may have mentioned that in his remembrance of the composer. Plus, the sequel isn't even in production yet. Still, it's good to know we'll get a little more great music from James Horner after his passing.
The Magnificent Seven opens on January 13th, 2017.