“Quite honestly, I’ve gotta sit down with Zack [Snyder] and have a chat with him about what he’s trying to do because what I don’t want to do is go back to that well,” Hans Zimmer said last fall, when asked if would return to score “Batman Vs. Superman.” “It’s a different Batman; Christian Bale and what I did with Chris, that needs to have its autonomous life. I don’t want to go and now appropriate that and put that into the other Batman.”
And indeed, it’s quite dilemma. Zimmer’s work on Nolan’s films was distinctive and nearly iconic, creating a sonic backdrop that help inform both the characters and film, adding to the gritty realism the director took with the material. And the question of how to reapproach the character from a composer’s point of view, so soon after, is one that’s troubling Zimmer. Though, as he recently told Digital Spy, he’s eager to hash things out with Zack Sndyer and see if he can find a way in.
“We’ve already had a couple of chats, and once I finish the movie that I shall not talk about I will probably head over to where Zack is shooting his movie and just hang out a bit and see if we can come up with any ideas,” the composer said. But again, it’s about resolving the creative conflict he has when it comes to Nolan’s work.
“That’s my problem, that’s my dilemma. I don’t want to betray, if that’s the right word, the Dark Knight movies. That was Christian, it was Christian’s role,” Zimmer continued. “It’s not just that it was nine years of our lives, so you want to stay honest and honourable to that period. So it’s really about, ‘Is there something else I can find that I haven’t tapped into?’ Which I don’t know until I sit down with Zack.”
In short: it sounds like Zimmer wants to chat with Snyder about the character before settling on whether he’ll take the gig or not. It’s certainly a challenge, but we hope Zimmer takes the job, because his work on “Man Of Steel” was one of the best things about the movie. But even if he turns it down, Snyder has until 2016 to find someone else.