Michael Giacchino Has "Total Freedom" To Do Whatever He Wants With 'The Batman' Score

Michael Giacchino is set to join the likes of Danny Elfman, Hans Zimmer, Elliot Goldenthal, and more as one of the people who have created music for the Caped Crusader. Giacchino is set to create the soundtrack for Matt Reeves's The Batman, and according to the composer, he has free reign to do whatever the heck he wants. We've actually already heard some of Giacchino's score in the camera test Reeves released, and there's still plenty more to come.

The Batman Score

In that camera test video above you can catch a hint of what's in store for Michael Giacchino's The Batman score. Speaking with Collider, Giacchino talked a bit about his approach to creating brand-new Bat-music, including the snippet heard above. "Matt and I talked about this for a long time, obviously and last year, after reading the script I remember sitting down and going 'Oh, I have an idea, I have an idea,' and I wrote that piece that is in the teaser trailer," said the composer. "And Matt has had that. It was just a demo version of it, it wasn't even done with the orchestra or anything, so then he had been using that in every single one of his presentations at Warner Bros. He would put it behind and be like, 'Alright, here are the costumes,' and you hear the thing, 'Here's the music,' and you hear the thing. So when it came time to release the [teaser], he was just like, 'Well, we have to put it with the music.'"

Giacchino also talked about the freedom he has in creating the score:

"I felt total freedom to do whatever I want. Matt always agreed, this is our Batman, this is our vision. In the same way that I always loved, what I still do about Batman comics and graphic novels is that each of these artist, each of these authors they take their own crack at what they want this to be. It's their version of Batman...I love it when I see a graphic novel of Batman in the 1800s. To me that is cool. I love that. I'm not the kind of person that says Batman must always be this. It's like no, why? It can be whatever the artist wants to be and it has over the years done that, many times over. I love the idea of taking something and just kind of doing our version of it."

While that's not much to go on, it's clear that Giacchino and Reeves are striving for something different, and not the same old same old. To be fair, all of the respective Batman scores have been like this. Danny Elfman's moody, gothic music is vastly different than Elliot Goldenthal's bombastic, heroic score, and Hans Zimmer's pulsing, droning themes.

As for what to expect next, Giacchino says that there's still more music to be heard as the film gets back to production and marketing picks up. "We recorded a bunch of other music as well for it, a bunch of themes and things that nobody has heard yet," said Giacchino. "But they'll all be popping up as the film gets underway again and starts getting back to production, and life gets back to normal, hopefully soon."

The Batman is currently scheduled to hit theaters June 25, 2021.