Quantumania Star Jonathan Majors Found The Perfect 'Villain Song' For Kang The Conqueror
Nothing beats a good villain theme. Yet despite being the world's dominant media franchise, the Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn't produced many memorable character themes (I'll defer an explanation to Every Frame a Painting), and there are even fewer villains with a signature leitmotif.
That doesn't mean they don't have unofficial villain songs, though. In a recent interview for the upcoming issue of Total Film, which hits shelves next Thursday, Jonathan Majors revealed he brought his own theme for Kang the Conqueror to the set of "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania." While director Peyton Reed and star Paul Rudd were listening to '80s New Romantic bands (including Adam and the Ants, naturally), Majors was getting into the mindset of a conqueror with the rap song "9mm." A track on David Banner's 2008 album "The Greatest Story Ever Told," the song features Akon, Lil Wayne, and Snoop Dogg.
The lyrics are just one part of the sound in "9mm," but their aggressive self-aggrandizing definitely fits a time-bending conqueror like Kang. Take the chorus, which gives the song its title and central motif:
I got a nine millimeter
Ready to go off any minute so you feel it (so you feel it)
Because of the law, I had to conceal it (to conceal it)
But if you f*** around you gon' make me reveal it, ay (ay)
"[It's] essentially just like the hardest villain song," Majors enthused. "It's got horn, it's got the fanfare, the pomp and circumstance of a legion — Alexander the Great and [Julius] Caesar and everybody — coming home." (Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar were among the character reference points Majors was given for Kang, alongside Genghis Khan.) "It's just wicked. That song I would play on repeat cranked all the way up on set."
What's in a villain song?
The best villain songs in cinema history are ballads of malevolence, which leave you both swept up and horrified. Symphonic themes, meanwhile, are the perfect way to announce and sustain a villain's presence, as if their very being overpowers the film's sound. Who can't hum the horn-blaring rhythm of "The Imperial March," John Williams' theme for Darth Vader?
Villain songs don't even need to have words to tell a story about a character. Take Hans Zimmer's theme for Davy Jones in "Pirates of the Caribbean." The instrumental track opens with a soft music box, before abruptly rising in power to downright operatic levels, reflecting the tragedy of Jones' story. For a lyrical villain theme, it's hard to beat Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz's "Hellfire," sung by Judge Claude Frollo (Tony Jay) in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame." Used in concert with nightmarish visuals, Frollo's lust for Romani girl Esmerelda burns his soul, but he vows to not leave himself denied.
Not to imply Western cinema has the market cornered here. Some of my favorite anime villain themes are Susumu Hirasawa's "Behelit," the ethereal theme of Griffith from "Berserk," and "Girei" (or "Courtesy"), the theme for "Naruto" villain Pain, in which composer Yasuharu Takanashi mixes an organ and choir hymn together to accompany a god puppeteering six mortal bodies.
Alas, we probably won't be hearing "9mm" in the film itself; we'll have to settle for YouTube edits and TikTok fancams dedicated to Kang. However, I do believe more superhero movies could use hip-hop-flavored scores. "Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse" and the "Black Panther" films are proof of how well that music fits with propulsive and action-focused storytelling.
"Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" releases in theaters on February 17, 2023.