The most recent trailer for Zack Snyder’s Superman: Man of Steel managed to get our cold hearts stirring, not in small thanks to the first listen to the score by Hans Zimmer. Now a few versions of the full thumping track, entitled ‘An Ideal of Hope’, have surfaced. Listen:
Zimmer has said the inevitable comparison to John William’s famous score for Richard Donner’s Superman (1978) was daunting. He told CNN:
“He [Williams] is the greatest film composer out there, without a doubt, and it happens to be one of his iconic pieces of music, so I spent three months just procrastinating and not even getting a start on the thing, because I was so intimidated: ‘Oh my God, I’m following in John Williams’s footsteps’.”
He went on to say the challenge and appeal of the gig was in capturing Superman’s goodness, as opposed to the darker tones of Batman (Zimmer scored Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy): “What does it take to become a good man? To be good? And what does that mean in our more and more complex society? Do any of these values still resonate with us?…
“I thought it was important that the decent folk, simple folk, be the heart of the story, and a character who is guileless, who isn’t complicated in the sort of flawed way our Dark Knight is, and isn’t political in any way. He’s just striving to become a better part of humanity.”
Man of Steel opens in 2D and 3D on June 27.
