Fantastic Four (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)[a] is the soundtrack album to the 2015 film Fantastic Four. Directed by Josh Trank, the film is based on the Marvel Comics superhero team of the same name, and is a reboot of the Fantastic Four film franchise. The musical score is composed by Marco Beltrami and Philip Glass,[1][2] and the album was released in digital and physical formats on August 7, 2015 by Sony Classical Records, coinciding the film's release.[3][4] It was also released in two-disc vinyl sets on August 10.[5] Apart from featuring Beltrami and Glass' score, it also featured an original song "Another Body" performed by El-P and a single "Fantastic" performed by RM and Mandy Ventrice. The latter was only used for promotional purposes for the South Korean theatrical release, and is not featured in the film or the soundtrack.
| Fantastic Four (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Film score by | ||||
| Released | August 7, 2015 | |||
| Studio | Newman Scoring Stage, 20th Century Fox Studios, Los Angeles | |||
| Genre | Film score | |||
| Length | 1:14:45 | |||
| Label | Sony Classical | |||
| Producer |
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| Fantastic Four soundtrack chronology | ||||
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| Marco Beltrami chronology | ||||
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| Philip Glass chronology | ||||
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Development
editIn January 2015, Marco Beltrami was hired to compose the film's score and later that month, veteran composer Philip Glass was also hired to work on the score.[6][7] Miles Hankins, Brandon Roberts, Marcus Trumpp and Buck Sanders provided additional music for the film.[8] American hip-hop recording artist El-P scored the end credits of the film.[9]
Beltrami attended the 2015 San Diego Comic-Con held in July 2015, to discuss scoring the film. He described the score as "eerie" and "mysterious", landing it in a "musical territory leaning towards fantasy."[10] A musical piece from the prelude was scored by Glass, from which Beltrami had adapted several of its cues from the film's music.[10] Beltrami had opined that the score will be "darker" than that of the previous Fantastic Four film scores (composed by John Ottman) and he added that "the most important goal was to capture the innocence and curiosity of the kids who get exposed to interstellar radiation and become superheroes". He did not create individual themes for the film, but instead had created individual elements that come together.[11]
Promotional singles
editOn July 24, 2015, El-P announced the promotional single titled "Another Body" for the film,[12] and was later released during the live performance of his band Run the Jewels at the Beats 1 show on July 25.[13][14] The song was later featured as a bonus track in the digital streaming releases of the album.[3] To promote the film, Kim Nam-joon, known as RM of the K-pop group BTS, and American recording artist Mandy Ventrice, worked on the digital single "Fantastic", which was released alongside the South Korean run of the film.[15][16] The accompanying music video was released on August 3.[15][17]
Track listing
edit| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Artist | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Fantastic Four Prelude" | 5:16 | ||
| 2. | "The Garage" |
| 2:26 | |
| 3. | "The Unveiling" |
| 1:03 | |
| 4. | "Baxter" |
| 2:45 | |
| 5. | "'All My Faith'" |
| 0:45 | |
| 6. | "The Lab" |
| 0:53 | |
| 7. | "Meeting of the Minds" |
| 0:53 | |
| 8. | "It Begins" |
| 0:34 | |
| 9. | "Building the Future" |
| 2:49 | |
| 10. | "Launch One" |
| 3:11 | |
| 11. | "Neil Armstrong" |
| 2:57 | |
| 12. | "Maiden Voyage" |
| 1:56 | |
| 13. | "Footprints" |
| 4:00 | |
| 14. | "'Run'" |
| 2:38 | |
| 15. | "Ben's Drop" |
| 2:27 | |
| 16. | "Real World Applications" |
| 1:39 | |
| 17. | "Under Pressure" |
| 1:01 | |
| 18. | "The Search" |
| 1:58 | |
| 19. | "'You're Going to Like This One'" |
| 1:10 | |
| 20. | "Father and Son" |
| 1:49 | |
| 21. | "Return" |
| 2:42 | |
| 22. | "He's Awake" |
| 6:55 | |
| 23. | "Pursuit" |
| 3:01 | |
| 24. | "Strength in Numbers" |
| 5:17 | |
| 25. | "End Titles" |
| 6:15 | |
| 26. | "Another Body" (Digital bonus track) |
| El-P | 5:30 |
| 27. | "Fantastic" (Japanese version) |
| Nam-joon | 3:44 |
Reception
editIn spite of the film's extremely negative reception, the soundtrack still garnered a positive response. Jørn Tillnes of Soundtrack Geek gave a 57 percent score to the album saying "If you’re looking for another Marvel superhero score to match the latest trend, then you’ll find some of it here."[18] Mihnea Manduteanu of Soundtrack Dreams gave 80/100 to the score and praised Glass' co-contribution to the score, while opining that Beltrami's efforts are lost in the film.[19] Robert Trate of Sci-Fi Movie Page called it as an "amazing collection of music that should be listened to while reading a Fantastic Four comic".[20] Brian Lowry, writing for Variety, had opined that Beltrami and Glass "yields some intriguing riffs in what ultimately sounds like a pretty conventional score".[21]
James Southall of Movie Wave wrote "The opening and particularly the closing parts of the album are strong, thoroughly entertaining and impressive. The Philip Glass bits – which disappear almost completely the closer the score gets to its conclusion – do add a bit of curiosity value, but to be honest no more than that. The star of the show is Marco Beltrami’s action music towards the end."[22] Filmtracks.com wrote "The entirety of the score is interesting in parts but extremely underachieving given its original potential. It goes without saying that nothing from John Ottman's prior music for the franchise survives here, except for the concept's inability to escape from rather mediocre filler music outside of its blatant thematic expressions. It's an adequate but disengaged endeavor."[3]
Chart performance
edit| Chart (2015) | Peak
position |
|---|---|
| UK Soundtrack Albums (OCC)[23] | 46 |
| US Billboard 200[24] | 191 |
| US Soundtrack Albums (Billboard)[25] | 25 |
Personnel
editCredits adapted from CD liner notes[26]
- Production
- Music by – Marco Beltrami, Philip Glass
- Additional music – Brandon Roberts, Marcus Trumpp, Miles Hankins, Buck Sanders
- Recording – Vincent Cirrilli, John Kurlander
- Mixing – Tyson Lozensky, John Kurlander
- Mastering – Erick Labson
- Musicians
- Bass – Bart Samolis, David Parmeter, Drew Dembowski, Edward Meares, Michael Valerio, Nico Abondolo, Stephen Dress
- Bassoon – Ken Munday, Rose Corrigan
- Cello – Andrew Shulman, Armen Ksajikian, Cecilia Tsan, Dennis Karmazyn, Evgeny Tonkha, Paula Hochhalter, Steve Erdody, Timothy Landauer, Xiaodan Zheng
- Clarinet – Gary Bovyer, Ralph Williams
- Flute – Geri Rotella, Jennifer Olson, Sara Andon
- French horn – Benjamin Jaber, Daniel Kelley, David Everson, Jenny L. Kim, Laura Brenes, Mark Adams, Steven Becknell
- Harp – Marcia Dickstein
- Oboe – Leslie Reed, Phil Ayling
- Percussion – Alan Estes, Gregory Goodall, Marvin Gordy III, Wade Culbreath
- Piano – Bryan Pezzone
- Trombone – Alan Kaplan, Alexander Iles, William Reichenbach, William Booth
- Trumpet – Barry Perkins, Christopher Still, David Washburn, Jon Lewis
- Tuba – Doug Tornquist
- Viola – Alma Fernandez, Andrew Duckles, Brian Dembow, David Walther, Luke Maurer, Maria Newman, Matthew Funes, Michael Nowak, Robert Brophy, Scott Hosfeld, Shawn Mann, Victoria Miskolczy
- Violin – Alyssa Park, Bruce Dukov, Charlie Bisharat, Darius Campo, Elizabeth Hedman, Grace Oh, Helen Nightengale, Irina Voloshina, Jessica Guideri, Josefina Vergara, Julie Gigante, Katia Popov, Kevin Connolly, Lisa Liu, Lisa Sutton, Natalie Leggett, Neil Samples, Phillip Levy, Rafael Rishik, Roberto Cani, Roger Wilkie, Sandra Cameron, Sarah Thornblade, Serena McKinney, Shalini Vijayan, Songa Lee, Steven Zander, Tamara Hatwan, Tereza Stanislav
- Orchestra
- Orchestra conductor – Pete Anthony
- Orchestra contractor – Peter Rotter
- Orchestrator – Andrew Kinney, Dana Niu, Jon Kull, Mark Graham (3), Pete Anthony, Richard Bronskill, Rossano Galante
- Concertmistress – Belinda Broughton
- Stage engineer – Denis St. Amand
- Stage Manager – Damon Tedesco, Tom Steel
Notes
edit- ^ Also marketed in digital platforms as The Fantastic Four (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), and in physical formats as Fantastic 4 and FANT4STIC
References
edit- ^ Gallagher, Brian (January 7, 2015). "Fantastic Four Gets Wolverine Composer Marco Beltrami". MovieWeb. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
- ^ Riesman, Abraham. "The Fantastic Four Movie Seems Really Good All of a Sudden". Vulture. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
- ^ a b c "Fantastic Four Soundtrack Details". July 9, 2015. Archived from the original on December 29, 2019. Retrieved July 10, 2015.
- ^ "Marco Beltrami and Philip Glass Thrilling FANTASTIC FOUR Soundtrack On CD August 7". We Are Movie Geeks. August 2, 2015. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
- ^ "Original Soundtrack - Fantastic Four (Marco Beltrami & Philip Glass)". www.musiconvinyl.com. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
- ^ "Marco Beltrami to Score 'The Fantastic Four' Reboot". Film Music Reporter. January 6, 2015. Archived from the original on July 28, 2020. Retrieved January 7, 2015.
- ^ Weintaub, Steve (January 27, 2015). "'The Fantastic Four' Movie Details, Images, Easter Eggs, Tone, and More". Collider. Archived from the original on July 23, 2020. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
- ^ "Filmtracks: Fantastic Four (Marco Beltrami/Philip Glass)". Filmtracks Publications. November 12, 2015. Archived from the original on December 1, 2020. Retrieved August 13, 2020.
- ^ Beauchemin, Molly (July 11, 2015). "El-P Scored The End Credits For The New Fantastic Four Movie". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on July 12, 2015. Retrieved July 16, 2015.
- ^ a b Charrow, Abel (July 11, 2015). "Junkie XL, Brian Tyler, Marco Beltrami Discuss Scoring for Superheroes and Franchises". Nerdist. Archived from the original on July 16, 2015. Retrieved July 16, 2015.
- ^ Minow, Nell. "SDCC 2015: Superhero Music Composers at Comic-Con". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
- ^ "Update: El-P Shares Fantastic Four Track, "Another Body"". Pitchfork. Condé Nast. July 24, 2015. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
- ^ Renshaw, David (July 26, 2015). "El-P reveals 'Fantastic Four' song 'Another Body' during Run The Jewels' Beats 1 show – listen". NME. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
- ^ Kreps, Daniel (July 26, 2015). "Hear El-P's 'Fantastic Four' End Credits Song 'Another Body'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
- ^ a b "Rap Monster to drop a digital single in collaboration with Hollywood film 'Fantastic Four'!". allkpop. July 31, 2015. Archived from the original on August 2, 2015. Retrieved July 31, 2015.
- ^ "BTS: Did you know RM's song Fantastic featured in 2015 film Fantastic Four?". Hindustan Times. August 17, 2021. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
- ^ "BTS' Rap Monster Unleashes "Fantastic" MV for "Fantastic Four"". Soompi. August 3, 2015. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
- ^ Tillnes, Jørn. "Soundtrack Review: Fantastic Four". Soundtrack Geek. Archived from the original on August 21, 2016. Retrieved August 2, 2016.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ Manduteanu, Mihnea. "Soundtrack review: Fantastic four (Marco Beltrami and Philipp Glass – 2015)". Soundtrack Dreams. Archived from the original on August 6, 2016. Retrieved August 2, 2016.
- ^ Trate, Robert. "Fantastic Four Soundtrack Review". Scifi Movie Page. Archived from the original on August 13, 2016. Retrieved August 2, 2015.
- ^ Lowry, Brian (August 4, 2015). "Film Review: 'Fantastic Four'". Variety. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
- ^ "Fantastic Four soundtrack review | Marco Beltrami and Philip Glass | movie-wave.net". September 10, 2015. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
- ^ "Official Soundtrack Albums Chart Top 50". Official Charts Company. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
- ^ "Soundtrack Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
- ^ "Soundtrack Chart History (Soundtrack Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved August 12, 2022.
- ^ Marco Beltrami, Philip Glass - Fantastic 4 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), retrieved August 12, 2022