The Oscar-winning composer of The Grand Budapest Hotel, Alexandre Desplat, has revealed he will score the new Star Wars spin-off movie Rogue One, according to reports.
The news suggests that John Williams, the veteran composer of every major Star Wars film since 1977, will be skipping the 2016 entry. Williams is nevertheless confirmed to score JJ Abrams’ upcoming The Force Awakens, the first in a new trilogy of films in the long-running space opera saga.
Paris-born Desplat scored last year’s Godzilla remake, the most recent film from Rogue One director Gareth Edwards. The composer confirmed the news in an interview on the French website Radio Classique, according to Making Star Wars. “We [Gareth Edwards and I] will make another movie together very, very soon, which is a Star Wars spin-off,” he reportedly said.
Desplat’s previous work includes the soundtracks for Argo, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The King’s Speech, Fantastic Mr Fox, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Queen and Zero Dark Thirty. He won the Oscar for best score in February for his work on Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel and was also nominated for The Imitation Game, making him the first composer to compete against himself for an Oscar since Williams in 1978 (for Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind).
Rogue One was revealed as the title for Edwards film last week during a Disney conference for investors. Bloggers have speculated the movie, which the studio says details “characters and events beyond the core Star Wars saga” may be about X-Wing pilots. The Theory of Everything’s Felicity Jones is tipped to play a lead role in the film, which debuts in December 2016.
