Rejected Scores, Main Lists

This page was not rejected by any producer.

Official CD Releases This Year

     A rejected score is just like any other score before rejection; somebody orchestrated it, somebody mixed it, somebody did additional scoring, somebody did music editing, musicians performed on it, and so forth. If you or someone you know did, feel free to contact me: justinboggan (at) hotmail (.) com (send it twice; if you don't receive a reply in a two days, I didn't get it -- send it again. Thank you.

     And please do pass this around to other people in the field -- you never know who might have some information or worked on one him or herself.

     Anytime you see ????? questions marks and know the answer, drop me a line or post in the Guestbook. Please.

     If you have a review of a rejected score and want it published on the site, please e-mail me with the review. IF you have photos from sessions of any rejected score, and would like to have it put online, please contact me.

     In fact, any magazine, whether Soundtrack!, Cinemascope, or what ever, from 1992 to older, that has interviews, mentions of scores being recorded, or lists of upcoming films and their composer, would be of great help.

Thanks     And many great thanks to Film Score Monthly whose lists of rejected scores (Stopping in 2002) inspired this long, long list which I have added to like a madman since. I took their last updated list and comments and started this site. Without them, what stands before you today would not have arisen.
(Films marked with an asterix managed to win a Best Score nomination for the replacement composer)

Thanks     Imdb.com member Jorodo helped greatly in expanding my list. His site created because of my little effort here, http://www.webspawner.com/users/jorodo/index.html, lists many scores. Some are speculation and didn't have any facts, so I left them off my list.

Thanks     I would also like to thank the (past) frequent and informative updates from MightyMcT.

Thanks     And one final new special thanks (5-5-05) to Christophe Bertrand. His wealth of new and interesting info will be featured on the site until he stops contributing.

Thanks     And contiuing thanks to Hubai. He'll have so much for this site, it'll shock you.

Site best viewed using Internet Explorer 4 or higher (I can't comment on Edge).
You will still be able to view and read it in other browsers, but there are no gurantees on it displaying accurately.

     Has John Williams ever had a rejected score?
     Well, this is going to take a bit to talk about. Now first off you might have heard the rumor that he did a rejected score for "Tucker: The Man And His Dream" -- never validated though. And in an interview Williams said he has never been rejected (though that interview was many years ago...). Which would be all well and fine if it were not straight from fellow composer Andre Previn's mouth that he replaced many of John Williams early scores. I guess that fits in nicely with another rumor I read that Williams was rejected a few times back in the days when he was called "Johnny".
     But, thanks to jwfan.net member, Andrade Miguel, I got this interesting specific bit:
"but in a 1985 BBC interview with Andre Previn, Previn said that they both had his score reject from an Ann Margret film -- Previn did wrote a song for Swinger, in 1967, with lyrics by Dory Previn, and Williams conducted it. But the score is neither by Williams or Previn."
     I did a imdb.com search for Previn and copied scores from about the time Williams started scoring and then went to Ann Margret's imdb.com list and one by one wiped all of the one's that didn't match until I was left with the "The Swinger" 1966. The score is by: Marty Paich. So, this must be it -- this must be what Williams had rejected. Fascinating huh? It's quite logical Williams has lied to us. :-) No, not him!
     But wait! The plot THICKENS!!! It seems Williams MAY have recorded score for a couple movies he left and that one of his cues may actually still be in the movie! I won't say anything else at this time ... until I have proof.

REJECTED

     There are many reasons for rejection, some listed on the main page, but just because a score is rejected, doesn't mean the composer lacks talent -- far from it. Just look at the info section and see the "Most Rejected" ones; do they strike you as untalented? A rejected score is not a way to judge a composer, but rather should be used as promotional tool for future work, like Yared's AMAZING "Troy".
     Rejected scores are like a whole new score for those who haven't heard them, or know rejected scores exist, and, therefore, should be looked upon as a regular score to profit from, yet we rarely get official CD releases of them. Companies like Varese Sarabande and Film Score Monthly are champions in an area where few others even care. All hail them, and then buy their CDs.

     In an attempt to keep the HTML code down, I have removed almost all the links to store bought CDs; need one, go to ScreenArchives.com, eBay.com, and if you really can't find it, try asking: soundtrackers@adelphia.net. See "Official CD's" for rejected scores on CD.

     On this list, I tried my best to only list ones that have been recorded; whether partially, or completely. If you are looking for "maybes", you want the Suposedly Rejected list. The lists may be split up and "Rejected" may have it's own page; it's getting too large to be friends with other lists...

This list last updated: June 22, 2023 (Click to "jump" to title; Click HR lines to go back here. "INFO" pages contain miscellaneous stuff like: interview excerpts, additional composers [rejected], sound engineers, orchestrators, musicians, where it was recorded, etc...)

MUSIC SAMPLES PAGE
(The Founder, First Love, The Current War, Brahmastra PArt One: Shiva, Cocaine Bear, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Rat Race updated.)

OLDER UPDATES (last month): Paperhouse, Massacre at Central High, "3 Generations" updated, Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, The Nutcracker and the Mouseking

EVEN OLDER UPDATES (month before last): Life on the Flipside, Africa.

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KEY:
+ = Unfinished score, whether not fully recorded or not completed in writing for recording.
* = "Films marked with an asterix managed to win a Best Score nomination for the replacement composer" (this system is kept over from the original FSM listing; I try to update once in a while)
ORIGINAL NAME (AKA: NAME RELEASED AS) -- Original composer. [Final composer.]

A question that comes up occassionally is: What are the scores written in the shortest amount of time? The top four are:

4. "Scary Movie 2" (72 hours)
3. "Breast Man" (less than 24 hours)
2. "Wet Gold" (precise time unknown, described as "hours")
And the winner is: "A Talent For Murder" (7 hours; the original composer is still unknown)

1924

JANICE MEREDITH -- Victor Herbert. Silent film scores were meant to be played live, not recorded, but I couldn't resist including this one, as it's the earliest rejected score I know of. Many, many thanks to imdb.com member jorodo. [Deems Taylor.]
1928
LA PASSION DE JEANNE D'ARC -- Jacb Gade, R.I.P.. According to composer Ole Schnidt, who did a new score in 1983, the film had two rejected scores, the first being a large, lush one by an un-named composer duo; the second he did name, and IMDb reflects this as well, but according to an article written by Jonathan Rhodes Lee (for Silent Film Festival), Gade was first -- doing a score that was a "using a pastiche drawn from the orchestra’s library of familiar classics" . [Leo Pouget and Victor Alix.]
LA PASSION DE JEANNE D'ARC -- Leo Pouget and Victor Alix. In France the film recieved a new score (orchestrated by Eugène Météhen) and it was kept for the cut, but it was a special cut that was lost in a fire; a new cut of that was then made, but then those tapes were also lost in a fire (decades later a print of the film was found in storage next to a mental institute). [NO SCORE USED IN ORIGINAL CUT.]
1930
JUST IMAGINE -- The Fox sci-fi musical originally featured a massive wall-to-wall score by staffers Peter Brunelli, Hugo Friedhofer, Reginald Bassett, Jean Talbot, Jack Virgil, but the release print only had part of Friedhofer's contribution on the soundtrack. [Obviously.]
1931
DER MORDER DIMITRI KARAMASOFF -- ?????. The director said he didn't like the previous score and coincidently during that time, met Karol Rathaus. IMDb also lists Kurt Schroder -- perhaps he did the original score. [Karol Rathus.]
RESERVED FOR LADIES -- Percival Mackey. This Alexander Korda film made in UK retained its original score there, but Paramount replaced Mackey's score with stock cues for the US release. [Karl Hajos, Rudolph Kopp, John Leipold.]
1932
THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME -- W. Franke Harling. This is a sum up of what the liner notes in the Naxos CD say: Max Steiner was begged to take over and write a replacement score, despite an already massive workload which would eventually result in him leaving RKO, when producer Meriam Cooper strongly disliked Harling's fully completed score, suggesting it was too light and invoked broadway and passengers on a desert island. Buried in an enourmous work load, Steiner was eventually talked into rescoring the film and completed his score two weeks before the film opened. [Max Steiner.]
1933
THE GOOD COMPANIONS -- Bretton Byrd, Walter Collins, Leighton Lucas. Another British picture subject to tampering in the USA. This was a musical with songs by George Posford and an original background score by three anonymous staffers under MD Louis Levy. Fox released it in US with a new background score by Friedhofer based on Posford's songs. [Hugo Friedhofer.]
1935
THE SCOUNDREL -- George Antheil. Appearing in all Atheil's filmographies, his score was not used, and he isn't credited. The replacement score was compiled from various works, including Rachmaninoff's 2nd piano concerto, by MD Frank Tours. [Classical and Stock music.]
1936
THE FUTURE'S IN THE AIR -- Raymond Bennell. Alwyn's first film job was re-scoring this documentary short. [William Alwyn.]
PAGLIACCI -- Rutland Broughton. After doing some or all of his score, the director decided to use a friend instead, whose score also may not have been used. [?????.]
1937
THE ADVENTURES OF DON QUIXOTE -- Maurice Ravel, R.I.P.. According to a 1953 book on the composer, the replacement score was prefered, and two reasons were given for rejecting Ravel's score (quoting the book): "Ravel was late with his score and Chaliapan found them [it] lacking in dramatic affect"; according to the book, to boot at the time Ravel was writing an opera on the character, and having his score rejected certainly didn't help matters. [Jacques Ibert.]
1938
THE RIVER IS BLUE (AKA: BLOCKADE) -- Kurt Weill. Supposedly not recorded, but some written. [Werner Janssen.]
YOU AND ME -- Kurt Weill. Much of Weill's score was abandoned and changed. Even the title song is by Frederick Hollander. [Weill, W. Franke Harling, John Leipold, Leo Shuken.]
1939
STAGECOACH -- Louis Gruenberg. The director wasn't happy with the score. As written in the book How the West Was Sung: Music in the Westerns of John Ford, Gruenberg did an eighteen minute score and thirteen minutes of it were rejected straight away, then the remaining five minutes were then rejected as well; in the end, one cue remains, which he had to sign an affidavit claiming he had written it, but Paramount didn't agree he wrote it and thus he did not recieve cue sheet credit. Apparently Gruenberg's score was a rush job intself. [Richard Hageman, Frank Harling, John Leipold & Leo Shuken; Gerard Carbonara (Indian cues); Stephen Pasternacki (Lordsburg segment arranged music); Louis Gruenberg (one leftover cue).]
TOWER OF LONDON -- Frank Skinner, R.I.P., & Hans J. Salter, R.I.P.. In what is the earliest example I know of, a test audience didn't get the film or the music, as told in an old interview, and the studio rejected score after it was recorded. Described as being of period music, and some original scoring, with a small orchestra (flutes, harpsichord, etc.); ironically, or to their benefit (depending on what the music use laws were then), stock music from a score recently completed, was used. INFO. [Stock music; some from "Son of Frankenstein".]
1940
THEIF OF BAGHDAD -- Oscar Straus. Producer Korda wanted Rozsa to write the score, but the director wanted to use Straus, who was in France at that time. He sent his songs and his score to England, where it was laughed at -- Rozsa called it "turn-of-the-century Viennese candy-floss". After hearing Rozsa's music, the director went with him -- Straus was paid his full price. [Miklos Rozsa.]
THE WESTERNER -- Dimitri Tiomkin. According to Jan Herman's biography of William Wyler ("A Talent for Trouble"), it was producer Sam Goldwyn who was unhappy with the original music and had Alfred Newman rewrite "much of Tiomkin's score". [Alfred Newman; Dimitri Tiomkin (leftovers).]
1942
SABOTEUR -- Frank Skinner. Hard to believe why this happens so often in other countries, but the German Language version featured a different score by an Austrian composer, Heuser -- who takes a similar approach, but reportedly sounds like Tiomkin. [Kurt Heuser.]
1943
HITLER'S MADMAN -- Karl Hajos. This poverty row PRC picture, originally "HITLER'S HANGMAN", was acquired by MGM which had it rescored. [Nathaniel Shilkret, Hajos, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Eric Zeisl, Arthur Morton.]
1944
BIG JACK -- Andre Previn. Originally hired first to do the score, only some of it remains in the film. [Herbert Stothert; Andre Previn (leftovers).]
+SINCE YOU WENT AWAY -- Alexandre Tansman. Tansman's complete written score resides at the University of Texas. They have an official site, for those of you who want to bug them (I did). Selznick went with another composer after hearing some of Tansman's music with an orchestra too small to actually perform it. One cue -- an arrangement of the song "Together" is retained. [Max Steiner, stock music by Alfred Newman.]
1945
CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA -- Arthur Bliss. Official CD. [Georges Auric.]
*THE LOST WEEKEND -- ?????. Producer Charles Brackett hired Rosza to do a replacement score. To quote Dan Hobgood's article on FSM:
"However, the film's musical accompaniment was inappropriate in tone and poorly placed within the picture.". [Miklos Rosza.]
1946
GREAT EXPECTATIONS -- Walter Goehr. About half of Goehr's music was rescored by Pakeman -- whom went uncredited. [Kenneth Pakeman, Walter Goehr.]
1947
THE PARADINE CASE -- Leith Stevens. Originally wanting Herrman, who was unavaiable, the Triva page on IMDb states (and this is backed up by books) that Stevens recorded nine cues, but the director David O. Selnik, rejected it and returned half the composer's fee to Universal and sent the score to the Stevens. [Kenneth Pakeman, Walter Goehr.]
1948
ARCH OF TRIUMPH -- Franz Waxman, R.I.P.. Said the director in an interview after a screening, "The preview was a disaster."; and so the film was re-edited, including some footage of German soldiers; the scenes were then cut after spending a large sum of money. Then they blamed Gruenberg's score, so they hired Waxman to rescore it, and he did, then the film was recut; I have no idea what happened afterward, but upon watching the opening credits, I see Gruenberg credited for the score. [Louis Gruenberg.]
MICHURIN -- Gavril Popov. According to the book Soviet Music and Society Under Lenin and Stalin: The Baton and Sickle, Popov's score was rejected for being complicated and not adhiring to to old Russian songs. [Shostakovich.]
+THE NAKED CITY -- George Bassman. Producer Mark Hellinger attacked Bassman at the recording sessions, claiming he plagiarized. The experience ended Bassman's Hollywood career, thinking people would believe Hellinger had a heart attack because of the event; that night Hellinger called Rozsa and was so shy about asking, but Rozsa accepted kindly, and Hellinger was so happy. He died shortly after. [Miklos Rosza.]
SO EVIL MY LOVE -- William Alwyn. Paramount rescored about half of the original Alwyn score for US release, but this is the version shown in UK too. (Jorodo: "Alwyn was surprised when I mentioned this to him"). [Alwyn, Victor Young.]
1950
NIGHT AND THE CITY -- Benjamin Frankel. Frankel's score retained in UK. Both versions circulate on British TV. Both are on CD. [Franz Waxman.]
1950
ANOTHER MAN'S POISON -- John Greenwood. Greenwood's score retained in UK. [Paul Sawtell.]
+DISTANT DRUMS -- Alex North. I got a copy after years of hunting and can confirm it showcases themes he later worked into other scores he did. Silva Screen records was going to release it a few years back around 2004, but the North Estate never responded to their call. INFO / Boot (supposedly all he recorded). [Max Steiner.]
1953
BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS -- Michel Michelet. The replacement score was done in ten days. INFO. [David Buttolph.]
ESCAPE FROM FORT BRAVO -- Jeff Alexander. His original, better score (as described in the book Torn Music (Hubai) was rejected and he was given another chance to score it. [Jeff Alexander.]
HIS MAJESTY O'KEEFE -- Robert Farnon. Farnon's score retained in UK. Both versions circulate on British TV. [Dimitri Tiomkin.]
1954
BETRAYED -- Walter Goehr. Goehr's version retained in UK. [Bronislau Kaper.]
+SEAGULLS OVER SORRENTO (AKA: Crest of the Wave) -- Hans May, R.I.P.. The Film Score Monthly 15CD Rozsa box set included, along with Rozsa's score, a 5:24 suite of May's rejected score (THIS FSM article explains that only 17mins survive). INFO. [Miklos Rozsa.]
1955
THE DESPERATE HOURS -- Gail Kubik. Only about half of Kubik's "Desperate Hours" junked. Amfitheatrof rescored it, uncredited, but Kubik kept his screen credit. Stock music by Young, Joseph J. Lilley and Paul Weston used. Ref: Clifford McCarty's Film Composers in America (2000). Kansas State University holds the tapes and paper work. On December 8, 2015, Intrada Records released what little score that still survives (mostly unused score), on a set of noir scores (including one surviving cue by Amfitheatrof). Gail re-worked his score into a new recording titled Scenario for Orchestra (which was paired with another rejected score re-recording and released by Kritzerland Records on November 11, 2019) [Daniele Amfitheatrof & Victor Young.]
STORM OVER THE NILE -- Buxton Orr. A widescreen remake of "The Four Feathers", the directors wanted to used use an adaptation of Miklos Rozsa's original score. Orr's re-workig didn't match, so a new score was written by Benjamin Frankel, who happened to be his teacher (not re-working Rozsa's original). [Benjamin Frankel, Miklos Rozsa (stock music from the original film).]
1956
FORBIDDEN PLANET -- David Rose. Rose recorded all his score, but destroyed it after the rejection. The film's trailer contains edited pieces from a few cues. Rose later re-recorded the main title for a CD. [Bebe Barron, R.I.P., Louis Barron (additional).]
HELL ON FRISCO BAY -- David Buttolph. [Max Steiner.]
INVITATION TO THE DANCE (middle segment) -- Malcolm Arnold. [Andre Previn.]
IT'S A WONDERFUL WORLD -- ?????. [Robert Farnon.]
1957
A KING IN NEW YORK -- Philip Sainton, R.I.P.. An online bio says the film's drector, Charlie Chaplin, wanted to take credit for the score, but Sainton didn't want to have anything to do with that, so he left; supposely another composer did a score as well. While Chaplin is credited as the film's composer (he did do scores after all), one wonders if he requested and took credit away from the replacement composer as well. [Charlie Chaplin.]
THE BARRETTS OF WIMPOLE STREET -- Malcolm Arnold. Arnold wasn't too disappointed with it's replacement. [Bronislau Kaper.]
SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS -- Fred Karlin. Karlin states in a 1983 interview the director approached him and he ended up doing the score, but the studio felt the score was too "esoteric" and had it thrown out, though Karlin states in the interview all the jazzy scoring is his, implying some was left in; the director, was not happy about the change. [Elmer Bernstein; Fred Karlin (leftovers?).]
1958
SADDLE THE WIND -- Jeff Alexander. Reportedly Bernstein didn't even know. Film Score Monthly released the complete scores to both. Here is a direct LINK to it. [Elmer Bernstein.]
SEPERATE TABLES -- David Raksin. Raksin said in an interview he composed two scores. [Take a wild guess Sherlock ;-) ]
+THE HORSE'S MOUTH -- Tristram Cary, R.I.P.. According to the composer on a site, other than his own, he explained: "Score rejected by Director. One day's recording, which I have on file". During a Q&A, the film's editor remarked he did a very modern score and they had to throw it out. [Kenneth V. Jones; Tristram Cary (one cue left in).]
WE ARE THE LAMBETH BOYS -- ?????. Told Dankworth in an interview once:
"He'd made a documentary, and someone had written a score which he didn't like it and which he rejected. I don't know what he did after that, how he replaced it. But he played this film, or part of it, to show me the sort of music that he didn't like. It wasn't at all bad, but it was traditional in that it used the sort of effects and sort of music you would expect. It wasn't trashy in any way, but 'that's what I don't want', he said, 'I just want you to sit in front of this film and think of something'. But he certainly wasn't a particular jazz fan. He may simply have heard my records and liked what he heard.
This turned out to be Dankworth's first score, done on a "shoe string" budget, since Ford didn't offer any up. [Johnny Dankworth, R.I.P..]
1959
THE SCAPEGOAT -- Douglas Gamley. imdb.com member jorodo came across the cue sheet for Gamley's version. According to the imdb.com trivia, it was recorded in England, and was a mix of classical pieces and regular film score. [Bronislau Kaper.]
SHADOWS -- Charles Mingus. [Shafi Hadi; Charles Mingus (leftovers).]
1960
THE DAY THEY ROBBED THE BANK OF ENGLAND -- ?????. [Edwin Astley.]
GENERAL ELECTRIC THEATER: "SARAH'S LAUGHTER" -- Fred Steiner, R.I.P.. While some tapes for TV scores of this era are lost, this one is still in tact (so is Goldsmith's replacement score), along with paper work for each. [Jerry Goldsmith, R.I.P..]
LE PILLOLE DI ERCOLE -- Ennio Morricone. This was to be Morricone's first score, but producer Dino de Laurentiis didn't want a newcomer, so the fully recorded score was tossed. [Armando Trovajoli]
SURPRISE PACKAGE -- Benjamin Frankel. Stanley Donen wanted a more darker score for his movie and replaced most of Frankel's score. Only nine minutes retained -- the composer removed his name, so there's no composer credited now. [Kenneth V. Jones, Benjamin Frankel (leftovers).]
1961
THE INNOCENTS -- Georges Auric. About half of Auric's score was scrapped and rescored by KVJ, uncredited. The electronic soundscape was created by Daphne Oram. [Georges Auric, Kenneth V. Jones.]
1962
+HATARI -- Hoagy Carmichael, R.I.P.. While his score is replaced, at least one song he did was retained, and Indiana University holds some, if not all of the tapes and paper work. [Henry Mancini, R.I.P.; Hoagy Carmichael (supposedly some left in).]
I THANK A FOOL -- Gail Kubik. Kubik kept the session tapes, according to Irwin Bazelon's book Knowing the Score (1975). Gerard Schurmann orchestrated for Kubik. Kansas State University holds the tapes and paper work. INFO. Gail re-worked his score into a new recording titled Scenes for Orchestra (which was paired with another rejected score re-recording and released by Kritzerland Records on November 11, 2019) [Ron Goodwin.]
1963
BEBO'S GIRL -- Vakentino Bucchi. Some of Bucchi's score was released on LP [CAM EP45 / CEP45-109]. [Carlo Rustichelli.]
THE CELLAR (HA-MARTEF) -- Natan Gross. An old report from the Berlin Film Festival with new films, listed that the score was done by the film's director. [Eddie Halperin.]
DELAY IN MARIENBORN (AKA: STOP TRAIN 349) -- Peter Thomas. An old report from the Berlin Film Festival with new films, listed that the score was done Mr. Thomas, making special note that it was a 12-tone score, and that there were plans to put out a soundtrack, which the report said would be the first German score to be put on a record. [Claude Vasor.]
SUSUZ YAZ (AKA: REFLECTIONS) -- Manos Hadjidakis (with Michael Kamen and Mark Snow). The story of what happened, as told by bassist/cellist Dorian Rudnytsky on this website, is that actor and producer on the film, Ulvi Dogan, wanted the film released in the United States but needed to modernize certain aspects and that a new score would help. Manos agreed and did a new score for the film, with arrangements by Kamen and Snow, but a screaming fight between Manos and Dogan happened, which destroyed the whole thing, though the score had been already recorded; it ended up being released under the same title as the film was called in the U.S., Reflections. [Manos Hadjidakis.]
MOONSTRIKE: (UNKNOWN EPISODE) (mini series) -- ?????. In a book about replacement composer Dudley Simpson, it explains that at a party, the producer of an episode approached him and asked if he wrote film music, and that he was doing this series, but that "Two people have written a score" that wasn't working (it wasn't fully explained; two people did a score together, or two seperate people did their own scores?) and he said, "I need it yesterday", leaving Simpson with only a week to do his score. [Dudley Simpson.]
YESTERDAY IN FACT (Polish film "Naprawde wczoraj") -- ?????. The replacement composer had just under a day to write and record his score, for which he got an award and recognition for. IMDb lists another composer, Lucjan M. Kaszycki -- perhaps (if he didn't help on the replacement) he was the original composer. [Gunther Schuller.]
1964
THE GHOST OF SIERRA DE COBRE -- Dominic Frontiere. According to the book The Outer Limits Companion (David J. Schow), Frontiere did a score for the failed pilot which the director dumped in favor of stock music from "The Outer Limits". Those who have the book can see if there are further details. [Dominic Frontiere (stock music).]
SEVEN DAYS IN MAY -- David Amram. I read at FSM that on the DVD commentary, the director said he fired him. The Intrada Records release of Goldsmith's replacement score did not contain Amram's, which was reported by Lukas over at FSM as having the rights returned to Amram and the studio having no tapes; this means liekly one of three reasons why his score was not included: the composer was not asked, the composer declined, or he has no tapes either (or alternatively they are in too poor shape). Previously I had reported, from somebody else telling me, that was cue was retained, a source cue, but the cue is in fact a piece from another one of his scores, so none of Amram's original score is retained. INFO. [Jerry Goldsmith, R.I.P..]
SOMETHING WILD -- Morton Feldman. The CD Something Wild: Music for Film contains a cue or two from his rejected score (re-recorded). [Aaron Copland.]
1965
MISTER ROBERTS: "BOOKSER'S HONEYMOON" (pilot) -- Stan Kenton. As told in the book. Stan Kenton: This is an Orchestra!, Kenton contacted a producer for the pilot and ended up being signed to do the theme song and score. Out of his depth, he contacted Pete Rugolo for for advice.&nvsp; However, editor Loeffler recants how he was at Warner Bros. and happened to watch Kenton recording his score, noting how uncomfortable and out of his depth he was, even though he couldn't hear the stage. Said the producer Kenton originally saught, they put the music to the pilot and junked it, saying that it was too strong and that 1965 was perhaps to soon for a Kenton score for a television series. In the end Kenton's theme music was kept and as of 2015 his resume on IMDb shows only one scoring credit. [Johnny Mandel.]
PROMISE HER ANYTHING -- John Barry. For a few years now I had read an IMDb trivia bit saying Barry had done a score, but I was unable to find anything that could collaborate that, until now; in a book, Murray tells that the "powers" didn't like Barry's score, and ask Lyn to replace it; he further goes on to say he did not hear Barry's score. [Lyn Murray.]
PUSH BUTTON GO (AKA: Shellarama) -- Steve Race. Tubby Hayes on some instrument. [John Scott.]
+THE SLENDER THREAD -- George Bassman. In Sidney Pollack's directorial debut. Pollack wanted to replace Bassman's score with improvised trumpet riffs, and eventually called on Jones to do that. There was some disagreement between the director and Bassman, resulting in not all the score getting recorded. [Quincy Jones.]
1966
*+THE BIBLE -- Ennio Morricone. Some parts of the score were reused in such films as "Secret of the Sahara" and "Il Ritorno Di Ringo". The track "Llincontro Conla Figlia" from the RCA CD Return to Ringo, is supposedly a track from this score. Morricone only recorded about 15 to 16 minutes, to show what he could do, after producers had asked Rozsa to score the film. [Goffredo Petrassi.]
THE BIBLE -- Goffredo Petrassi, R.I.P.. In the end, these composers came after Igor Stravinsky was being considered. INFO. [Toshiro Mayuzumi.]
CHAPPAQUA -- Ornette Coleman. Available on a 2CD set title "Chappaqua Suite". INFO. [Ravi Shankar.]
L'UOMO CHE RIDE -- Piero Piccioni. Man has a Herrmann opinion, read HERE. In February, 2011, his rejected score was released along with the replacement score, by GDM/Legend, for what ever reason, on cassette, too (limited to 500 copies). [Carlo Savina.]
MAROC 7 -- Paul Ferris. Ferris' source music for the opening party scene retained. He is credited with "main theme and party music" but KVJ told me (jorodo) he wrote a new score without referring to any Ferris theme. [Kenneth V. Jones - in KVJ wrote additional, uncredited cues for Ferris's WITCHFINDER GENERAL/THE CONQUEROR WORM.]
MATCHLESS -- Piero Piccioni. Morricone did not work with Gino -- though they both contributed. [Ennio Morricone, Gino Marinuzzi, Jr.]
THE RAT PATROL: "THE CHASE OF FIRE RAID" (pilot) -- Alex North. North recorded a score for the pilot which ended up not being used, as well as his own opening and closing theme music (reported by some score fans as sounding like a precursor to "The Devil's Brigade"). On May 6, 2014, La La Land Records released a second volume of score from the series, this time also containing North's score. [Dominic Frontiere.]
SECOND BREATH -- John Lewis, R.I.P.. [Bernard Gerard, R.I.P. (used to orchestrate for Desplat).]
+TORN CURTAIN -- Bernard Herrmann. Herrmann reworked some of his rejected score into Battle of Neretva -- itself a rescore of a foreign film -- and Elmer Bernstein also used some of it in his adaptation score for the remake of Cape Fear. The Torn Curtain score has been re-recorded twice -- once by Elmer Bernstein in the '70's for an LP, and once by Joel McNeely for a Varese Sarabande CD [48:13]. The supplement to the recent Torn Curtain DVD features sequences with Herrmann's score tracked back in -- but reportedly, the synch isn't perfect and is in mono. But this is a brave step by MGM. INFO+v. [John Addison.]
1967
A TIME FOR KILLING -- Van Alexander. A song left, but uncredited. INFO. [Mundell Lowe.]
BONNIE & CLYDE -- George Bassman. According to an article, which I believe originates from Wiki, Bassman had "several scores" rejected before he finally passed away, and that this was one of them. This is only his third time on the list and I could not find any of those "several". It should be noted that very little of the replacement score is actually left in the film. The director left the picture and had Warren Beatty handle the situation of having it scored. Beatty hired the composer, had a score done, but when it was put into the picture it softened the action and dialogue too much. The budget was gone and the decision was made to have no score. [Charles Strouse.]
THE GRADUATE -- Dave Grusin. According to saxophonist Bill Perkins in an interview about a year before he passed away, Grusin did an entire score for the film which he said was disgarded. In the end Grusin is credited for "Additional music" in the opening credits; there an entire unheard score waiting to be released by some enterprising label. [Dave Grusin (leftovers).]
OH DAD POOR DAD, MAMA'S HUNG YOU IN THE CLOSET AND I'M FEELING SO SAD -- George Duning. What a name for a film, huh?. The film was shelved for two years before the studio decided to bring it out of the closet and have it rescored. [Neal Hefti.]
SINFUL DAVY -- John Barry. Score was rejected by MGM executives and the director, whom felt it was too "serious". Sadly it seems the tapes were water damaged during a flood when in storage just over the road from CTS studios (assuming Thorne or Barry don't have copies themselves). John Greenhill stated this in a post at FSM. INFO. [Ken Throne.]
1968
A DANDY IN ASPIC -- ?????. Read an old article saying Duke Ellington was doing the music, but that doesn't necessarily mean he did the rejected score (though somebody did do one). [Quincy Jones.]
AGE OF CONSENT -- Peter Sculthorpe. Sculthorpe's score retained in Australia? During the Sydney Film Festival, at the State Theatre, on June 19, 2005, the film was shown with restored scenes (including nude scenes of Helen Mirren) and Sculthorpe's score fully restored. There was a Q&A with the composer and others, which I didn't find a transcript of. [Stanley Myers.]
BARBARELLA -- Michel Magne, R.I.P.. While Googling for rejected score info, I found a post by someone who mentioned that he was told Universal had the tapes for Magne's rejected score. There are two releases with some of his score: a 2CD set of Magne music released in France, supervised by his widow, which contains a five-minute cue; the 2007 Universal France Mange compilation has eight cues, with approximately 25 minutes of score (that's counting the song, too). [Charles Fox, and what ever the hell James Campbell had to do with it.]
BOOM! -- Michel Legrand. Listed on BFI.org.uk's site. When a label looked into releasing the score, supposedly Intrada Records, the studio could not find the tapes to Barry's score (nothing was said about Legrand's); any CD you see of it is a bootleg, regardless of excuses. [John Dankworth, R.I.P..]
BOOM! -- John Dankworth, R.I.P.. Dankworth tells in his book, Cleo and John: A Biography of the Dankworths, how with little direction from the director and only having seen the film a couple times, he did a score; after a couple sessions the director, not liking the score, said, "Maybe I just don't like strings much" -- never a good sign. He said another composer had been on board, so unless there's a mystery composer I don't know about, that solves where Legrand falls. INFO. [John Barry, R.I.P..]
CANDY -- Jack Nitzsche. Special thanks to the son of the late composer for confirming this title. INFO. [Dave Grusin.]
NEW FACE IN HELL (AKA: P.J.) -- Percy Faith, R.I.P.. Wasn't all to happy about it either. INFO. [Dave Grusin.]
CRISS-CROSS (AKA: P.J.) -- Dave Grusin. Putting together a score fairly quickly, and with a producer breathing down his neck on the scoring stage, even right next to him as he wrote it, the producer left the room after one session not saying anything, and after Grusin's score was done, he became the second victim. [Neal Hefti; Percy Faith (one song leftover).]
FADE IN -- Manos Hajidakis. One of two US scores written in 1968 by the Greek composer. This one was replaced, but the other, BLUE, was used. [Ken Lauber, Leo Shuken, R.I.P., Jack Hayes, R.I.P..]
LAND OF THE GIANTS: "THE CRASH" PILOT EPISODE -- Alexander Courage. While the GNP Cresendo CD featured some of Courage's rejected episode score, on November 23, 2018, La La Land Records released a 4CD srt of scoring from the show, including Courage's score. Mundell Lowe also recorded an opening theme which was not used; the tapes had been missing, but were found for the 4CD set. [John Williams.]
+THE LOST CONTINENT -- Benjamin Frankel. The director showed up at the sessions, asked for a bunch of changes, and finally had an argument with Frankel that ended up with his score being replaced. [Gerard Schurmann.]
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY -- Frank Cordell, R.I.P.. In a 1967 radio interview, Cordell said he was busy adapting the music of Gustav Mahler for 2001. Cordell tried to get it out on CD, but passed away; his widow been trying since then, with no success, meanwhile North's score has been re-recorded, and the original recording also released on cD. Would still be interesting to hear this one. Shows a pattern in Kubrick. If the man had remained alive for A.I., no doubt he would have rejected Williams. [Alex North.]
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY -- Alex North, R.I.P.. North reworked his "2001" music into "Shanks", "Dragonslayer", and used a four-note motif from the main title, in one of the themes from "Shoes of the Fisherman". Jerry Goldsmith conducted a re-recording of the complete score [35:37] for a Varese Sarabande CD, but a labeling mix-up caused him to also re-record North's theme for the TV documentary "Africa", included on the "2001" disc as intermission music. But, sadly, the original score was recorded over to save money HERE: Paragraphs 3 and 4 from the bottom. I read in a FSM post that some kind of copy of the original score, is still preserved at a Alex North Society or something. In spite of all this, Intrada Records' first release of 2007 was of the original tracks (now since SOLD OUT). To North's surprise, upon seeing a screening of the film, none of his score was left. INFO. [Classical music.]
1969
THE APPOINTMENT -- Michel Legrand. For a good telling of what happened, go to HERE.. [John Barry, R.I.P..]
THE APPOINTMENT -- John Barry. Although John Barry was replaced on The Appointment, European versions of the film still carry his score even though the credit remains Stu Phillips. [Stu Phillips.]
THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN -- Johnny Mandel. According to Jarre in and interview (see "Chu Chu Philly and the Flash"), Alex North was the first composer, before Mandel. [Maurice Jarre.]
*THE REIVERS -- Lalo Schifrin. INFO. [John Williams.]
SWEET HUNTERS -- Carl Orff. This Panamanian film originally had Orff's "Carmina Burana" on the soundtrack, but the UK release had additional scoring by Whitaker. [David Whitaker, Carl Orff.]
TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE -- Jimmy Webb. If used, would have been Webb's very first film score; oddly enough, Webb's second film score was also rejected (see 1970) and yet he still tried to break into film scoring (and was successful). [Patrick Williams.]
TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE -- Patrick Williams. In a 2008 interview, when asked if he ever had any rejected scores, he said "two" (both listed), but declined to comment any further. Shame. [Dave Grusin.]
1970
A NEW LEAF -- Johnny Mandel. Most of Mandel's score was replaced with Hefti's music from OH DAD, POOR DAD, after the film was cut down from three hours. No composer credited. Mandel said the score wasn't so much rejected as it was "decapitated". [Neal Hefti (stock music); Johnny Mandel (leftovers).]
THE ANGEL LEVINE -- Frank Lewin. An old article reported Lewin being hired, and a 2CD set of cues from various scores Lewin did, reportedly contains a few pieces from the score; I don't have the set -- perhaps the liner notes tell what happened. [Dusan Radic.]
THE ANONYMOUS VENETIAN -- Giorgio Galini. [Stelvio Cipriani.]
BATTLE OF BRITAIN -- William Walton. At Laurence Olivier's insistence, Walton's "Battle in the Air" cue was retained in the final film, despite Goodwin's contract specifying none of the original score would be in the picture. Goodwin later said in an interview that nobody had actually told Walton his score had been rejected and that Walton found out when a news paper reporter contacted him to ask him about the situation. The Ryko soundtrack CD includes Walton's complete score [25:45] as well as Ron Goodwin's replacement score. This CD was reissued recently (but is no longer listed on Varese's site). Malcolm Arnold orchestrated and provided additional cues on Walton's score. INFO. [Ron Goodwin, Malcolm Arnold (additional); William Walton (one cue retained).]
CRY OF THE BANSHEE -- Wilfred Josephs. INFO. [Les Baxter.]
*LOVE STORY -- Jimmy Webb. Indeed he did a score and when it was going to be tossed, he was offered a chance to do another one. Apparently back then it was common knowledge that Webb sued over the replacement of his score. Notably, Webb was the second composer on the film, with Burt Bacharach being hired first (I don't know if he recorded). Lai didn't even want to do the movie. [Francis Lai; with classical music from: Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Friedrich Handel, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.]
THE MOLLY MAGUIRES -- Charles Strouse. Mancini said in an interview that the previous score was very sparce, so much so there was no score for a long period in the film. I was never personally able to reach Strouse via his website. On January 30, 2012, Kritzerland Records released both Mancini and Strouse's respective scores on one CD. [Henry Mancini, R.I.P.]
ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER -- Neal Hefti. According to the book September In the Rain, a Nelson Riddle biography, Hefti was initially hired to score the film, but Streisand didn't like it for some reason. [Burton Lane & Nelson Riddle.]
THE RAILWAY CHILDREN -- Harry Robertson, R.I.P.. One piece retained. [Johnny Douglas; Harry Robertson (one cue leftover).]
THE RED CIRCLE / Le Cercle Rouge -- Michel Legrand. You can order the big, new set: Le Cinema De Michel Legrand, HERE. It contains one cue: "Chasses-Croises" 2:46. In an interview Demarsan says he got a call from the director saying he had hired another composer. Then one day he got called to go to the director's house, once there the director said he did not like Legrand's score and that if Eric took the job, he would have three weeks; no preassure, though. Legrand called and offered to help Demarsan, if he needed it. [Eric Demarsan (site in French).]
WATERLOO -- Wilfred Josephs. Joseph's waltzes retained for ballroom scenes. 1970 was not a good year for this British composer. [Nino Rota.]
1971
CHANDLER -- ?????. The director and producer were kept out as the film was re-edited and rescored. [George Romanis.]
CHRISTIAN THE LION -- Ray Beaver. [Pentangle (Terry Cox, Bert Jansch, Jacqui McShee, John Renbourn, & Danny Thompson).]
THE G0-BETWEEN -- Richard Rodney Bennett. The director thought the score was too dramatic and too climatic, so he got rid of it. INFO. [Michel Legrand.]
THE HOSPITAL -- Morris Surdin. In a book on Paddy Chayefsky, a story is related that Chayefsky, a producer on the film, had many problems with it and made some changes, including rejecting Surdin's first score and giving him one week to do a replacement. [Morris Surdin.]
THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF HER TOMB -- Stelvio Cipriani. One cue "Evelyn's Theme", on the "Bay of Blood" CD (and a couple alternates). Interestingly enough, all three film scores on that CD come from director's who never made a film with the character "Evelyn". Producer rejected the score. [Bruno Nicolai.]
THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK -- Ned Rorem. Said the director in an old interview:
"Jerry Schatzberg: I think in Panic in Needle Park the sound of the street is absolutely intrinsic to the film. I could not hear any music in this film. I had a score composed and tried to lay it in but it took away from the authenticity...".
In the end Rorem wrote and recorded 40 minutes of score which a week later was rejected, as he found out via a telegram, rather than a phone call. On June 27, 2016, Kritzerland Records released the complete score along with one alternate cue. [No original score.]
SEE NO EVIL (AKA: BLIND TERROR) -- Andre Previn. Said Previn about the expierience the year the film opened (which was called "Buff" when he was hired -- yet another name for the film), the producers wanted an eerie and scary score and Previn agreed under the strict condition he could use the London Philharmonic; synthesizers were used to add unusual sounds to the score and over the three days he recorded it, something happened he said had never happened before: the producer and director did not attend the sessions. He further added both Columbia and RCA Victor wanted to put out the soundtrack, and that one of the themes to the score (which Previn said was one of the best dramatic scores he had ever done) was so pretty they wanted to make a song out of it, so he wrote Johnny Mercer and Mercer sent back some lyrics. Then the real horror happened: the producers and director started showing up were extremely displeased with the score and the nature of it; Previn pointed out slitting throats and they came back with, "Yes, but there isn't anything the kids can whistle". He was asked to re-write it, he refused, then they suggested taking out parts they don't like and getting somebody else to do replacement cues, to which Previn insisted not one note be altered, so they tossed the score. After Whitaker's score was replaced, Previn said they tried out tracking existing music, which also didn't work. When Intrada Records was putting together their release of Bernstein's score, they couldn't do Previn or Whitaker's scores because the paper work and tapes for both were missing in action (if by some miracle you might have some information on either, please contact the label). INFO. [David Whitaker.]
SEE NO EVIL -- David Whitaker. At the time, Previn was married to the film's star, Mia Farrow. After his score was rejected, Whitaker's replacement score was also thrown out. [Elmer Bernstein, R.I.P.]
SUMMER OF 42' -- Dave Grusin. Story. [Michel Legrand.]
+TOUCH AND GO -- Jean Wiener. This is one of those silly stories. Instead of me rewording, I will just copy and paste what I got:
"...but as the director Philippe de Broca remembers, 'it all went wrong during the recording: he hadn't prepared anything, he just began improvising at the piano while his arranger beavered away in a corner. I had no choice but to let him go; he must have hated me for that.' "
Note to all inspiring composers: come prepared! [Michel Legrand -- one cue on that 4CD set mentioned on this page.]
1972
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA -- Augusto Alguero. Heston tells in a book that the original score just wasn't working out and he chose to hire Scott to provide a new score on very short notice. [John Scott; Augusto Alguero (leftovers, source music).]
COLUMBO: "THE GREENHOUSE JUNGLE" -- Paul Glass. The producers tossed the score after Mr. Glass used an uncommon instrument in it that made a sound they didn't care for (heckelphone). [Oliver Nelson.]
FRENZY -- Henry Mancini, R.I.P.. Mancini re-recorded his main title theme [2:15] for his CD Mancini in Surround. Unfortunately the tapes for Mancini's score are missing (supposedly Goodwin's are okay). Mancini stated in an old interview that the score did not have a theme. Mancini once said everything was going fine and Hitchcock was liking what he heard, then everything started going wrong when he changed his mind about it and that John Jympson, an editor on the film, suggested Goodwin to Hitchcock. Goodwin later stated in an interview Mancini had to call him up to find out what had been wrong with his score. INFO. [Ron Goodwin, R.I.P..]
THE GETAWAY -- Jerry Fielding. The limited release CD Jerry Fielding Film Music Vol. 3 featured a [17:39] suite from Fielding's score, but FilmScoreMonthly.com has released the entire score on CD, along with a special DVD related to it. On October 17, 2003, an individual by the name of Dick Dinman wrote a letter put up on FSM, with a hilarious bit of info:
"Your mention of Jerry Fielding's rejected score for THE GETAWAY brings back a memory of the first preview of that film, which was run with the Fielding score. At about the mid-point of the picture, the audience was startled by a very loud, very angry, and very inebriated voice screaming "F-I-E-L-D-I-N-G!!!!!!!!". The voice, of course, belonged to Sam Peckinpah."
Although they were prepared in time, the deluxe DVD release (2005) didn't feature Nick Redman's extras. They were put on the recent Blu-Ray edition though, which carries an isolated score, including the featurette "Jerry Fielding, Sam Peckinpah and The Getaway" which is also available with the soundtrack and a restored sequence of the bank robbery (Fielding's score with effects) as a separate feature. At the time FSM did their release of the Fielding score, tapes could not be located for Jones' effort and to this day there's been no word on tapes showing up. [Quincy Jones.]
LUCIFER RISING -- Jimmy Page. Page's score was included with the replacement score on a new release a few years ago. There is a bootleg of the 28 minutes of score Page did record; unknown as to whether this was the recordings to be used in the film or if these were simply demos made with his band. [Bobby Beausoleil.]
THE SALZBURG CONNECTION -- Bronislau Kaper. Most of Kaper's score rejected (16:30 retained, per cue sheet) after one of the film's producers decided the music needed to be more youth friendly. Jerry Goldsmith was announced in trades to rescore, but he doesn't seem to have recorded anything. Stock cues were substituted. No composer credited, only music supervisor Lionel Newman. An undistinguished end to Kaper's career. [Tom Scott, Duane Tatro, Henry Mancini, R.I.P. (the stock cue guys), and B. Kaper (leftovers).]
SOUNDER -- Alex North. FSM did an article that listed it and of course I was curious, so I contacted Lukas and he told me it was listed in Motion Picture Acadamy as having several tape reels. Finally, on July 8, 2014, Intrada Records released the score (along with a documentary score by North); the replacement score was not included. [Taj Mahal.]
UP THE SANDBOX -- Neil Hefti. There are things in like that are certain: death, taxes, and Barbra Streisand rejecting scores. [Nelson Riddle.]
UP THE SANDBOX -- Nelson Riddle. There are things in life that are certain: death, taxes, and Barbra Streisand rejecting a score again. Even Dave Grusin did a theme she didn't like. [Billy Goldenberg.]
1973
DEUX HOMMES DANS LA VILLE -- Franis de Roubaix, R.I.P.. [Philippe Sarde.]
THE EXORCIST -- Lalo Schifrin. The 14:14 which Schifrin recorded of his score was included on a CD packaged with a recent video release of the film. Schifrin was not even the first choice as composer (read about it). Possibly one of the most horrible reads on rejection: INFO. [Jack Nitzsche & found music.]
THE EXORCIST -- Jack Nitzche, R.I.P.. As told on the LSO website, Nitzche was hired to replace Shifrin's score, but was unable to finish writing due to a hand injury, but a few sessions did take place; since adding the before sentences, the LSO has updated their website to suggest that Nitzche might have recorded all of his score -- and ahead of time, and the final booked sessions ended up being used for other recordings. Ironically, the director had the nerve to ask to have the film's release date pushed back, after going over budget and nearly getting fired for it, so he could have it rescored, then rejecting the new score. [David Borden (two original demos); pre-exising music.]
HEX -- Patrick Williams. [Charles Bernstein.]
+THE MAN WHO LOVED CAT DANCING -- Michel Legrand. The 28:19 Legrand recorded for the film was included on FSM's CD of John Williams replacement score. INFO. [John Williams.]
THE NEPTUNE FACTOR -- William McCauley. The 2007 DVD release contained isolated score tracks for his, and Scifrin's score. McCauley said in an old interview they cut the film and rescored it without telling him (as I recall), and that he thought only about three of his cues were left in. INFO. [Lalo Schifrin, William McCauley, R.I.P. (leftovers).]
THE SEVEN-UPS -- Johnny Mandel. On July 24, 2007, Intrada Records released the score (paired with Ellis' replacement score). On April 19, 2018, Kritzerland Records re-issued the rejected score (not including the replacement), this time expanded as previously there was more score but the tapes were not usable. INFO. [Don Ellis.]
HELL UP IN HARLEM -- James Brown & Fred Wesley. A song/score done for the film which was untimately replaced. Wesley did the scoring. You can buy the song/score on CD HERE. [Fonce Mizell & Freddie Perren.]
1974
THE ANTARCTIC (Le Voyage au bout du monde) -- Franis de Roubaix, R.I.P.. His last score before dying, it was released on CD [Le Monde Electronique de Francois de Roubaix]. [Classical music.]
*CHINATOWN -- Philip Lambro. Music from Lambro's score is supposedly included in the film's trailer, seen on the DVD. Jerry said in an interview by Daniel Schweiger:
"Scores have been tossed out and redone ever since I can remember, though the only one I was called in to redo was CHINATOWN. And the main reason that score was rejected was because the composer wasn't right for the movie in the first place." Cheeky! Oh, and it gets better. Goldsmith also said: "I couldn't believe it, it was Chinese-sounding!". That coming from the master who also did Mulan... Goldsmith replaced Lambro's score 10 days from first screening with director to final mix. Bootleg CD-R, plus info on how it sounded. Perserverance Records was going to re-record the rejected score and release it in 2007, but due to lack of interest (according to the label's head), the project was cancelled; but on November 16, 2012, they finally released the original recorded score. INFO. [Jerry Goldsmith, R.I.P.]
DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY -- Jimmie Haskell. Even though Haskell still reciees credit, none of his score was kept in the film. The director explained in a DVD/Blu-Ray commentary that while he liked the score, it changed the tone of the film and had to be dropped. Hasekll's score was kept in trailers. [No original score.]
PRECINCT 45 (AKA: The New Centurions) -- Don Ellis. Providing a score -- his third film score -- not too different from his award-winning "French Connection", the studio felt it was too busy and too much going on and decided to replace it. With about three days to go, this must have been what drove Jones away. INFO (more coming, some added now. [Quincy Jones.]
S*P*Y*S -- John Scott. Scott's score retained on UK prints. This one is especially inexplicable, as Goldsmith's replacement score is probably the worst score he ever wrote. INFO. [Jerry Goldsmith, R.I.P. - The recent 2004 Varese Sarabande Jerry Goldsmith At Fox 6CD set included a good chunck on his score. It is sold out. Get ready to pay out the ass on eBay.]
1975
KEETJE TIPPEL -- Rogier van Otterloo. Still some left in. [Willem Breuker; Rogier van Otterloo (leftovers).]
INTO INFINITY (AKA: THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW; Pilot film) -- Steven Cole. The replacement composer states in a 1984 interview, the director didn't like the score. [Derek Wadsworth.]
DEEP RED -- Giorgio Gaslini. The jazzy score, rejected by the producer, still has small bits retained in the film. Go HERE to learn more about the previous score. [The group Goblin (members of the time unknown).]
THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING -- ?????. Actor Christopher Plummer commented on the film once stating that director John Houston had hired a "man called Joseph from England" to do the score and described the score saying, "He did a sort of Indian sitar music for India, and for the British a fife and drum. And that was light as a feather, and it went absolutely right with the wit and whimsy of Rudyard Kipling. But the studio came in and hired Maurice Jarre simply because he was a hot composer, and he wrote an epic score of such weight and heaviness.". [Maurice Jarre.]
MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL -- Neil Innis. The series composer didn't make a score per se, but did period music like dances, songs and other stuff that could be score, but I guess they decided it was time for something completely different (SQUISH). [DeWolfe Stock Music; composers: Stanley Black, Kenneth Essex, Paul Ferris, Peter Knight, Jack Trombey, Roger Webb.]
WINNER TAKE ALL (TV movie) -- Richard Markowitz. The University of California has at least the paper work and some information (unsure if the tapes). [David Shire.]
1976
THE ASTRAL FACTOR -- Bill Marx. Reissued in 1984 as THE INVISIBLE STRANGLER and for some reason rescored. [Richard Hieronymous, Alan Oldfield.]
THE LAST HARD MEN -- Leonard Rosenman, R.I.P.. On December 10, 2012, Intrada Records released the score, along with re-recorded Goldsmith stock cues (which were dropped and replaced with the original recordings); previously Intrada wanted to release this score, but the masters could not be found. INFO. [No original score. Cues from: 100 Rifles and Stagecoach (& others), by: Jerry Goldsmith, R.I.P.]
MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH -- Rene Daalder and David Campbell. In a Blu-ray extra, the director said he co-composed a synth score which the producers rejected. [Tommy Leonetti.]
PEEPER -- Billy Goldenberg. After a bad test screening, AKA: the dreaded test audience, they decided to try and save it by rescoring it and offered Goldenberg a chance to, which he declined. [Richard Clements.]
ROBIN AND MARIAN -- Michel Legrand. Some interesting things on Barry/Legrand's work HERE and HERE. Most interesting bit: Producer Ray Stark allegedly called Legrand's score "A piece of shit". Prior to 2001, a French label was going to release it, but cancelled. You can buy a box set of Legrand scores: Le Cinema De Michel Legrand, HERE. It contains only one cue from it, titled: "Sean and Audry" 8:49; also, in May 2009, a CD was released containing what I believe is the full rejected score. In an old interview, Barry' described Legrand's score as: "...double string concerto.". INFO. [John Barry, Richard Shores (additional score; two cues) - CD.]
THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH -- David Bowie. The Bowie fansite, Bowie Golden Years, goes into a good deal of detail on the score, including interview excerpts that talk about it. [John Philips and Stomu Yamashta; Duncan Lamont (additional).]
TODO MODO -- Charles Mingus, R.I.P.. Some of the score was re-used in his Cumbia and Jazz Fusion. There is a nearly 23 minute suite of the score on LP, and one track on a compilation CD. Morricone had days to do a new score. INFO. [Ennio Morricone.]
1977
THE DISAPPEARANCE -- ?????. Craig Huxley said in an interview:
"THE DISAPPEARANCE was a good case of a film which was re-edited. It had been scored once before, and the scoring was very elegantly done in a classical orchestral style, and it certainly fit the film. The problem was that many people felt the film was beautiful but utterly boring, so the challenge was to re-edit the film and through flashbacks create more of a dynamic, and through the music provide the feeling of a rush of energy, the attending climax to the film, and I felt it was somewhat successful in doing that."
IMDb lists Robert Farnon as the composer. The Spanish DVD release contain's Farnon's score. [I have no idea.]
FUN WITH DICK AND JANE -- Billy Goldenberg. Working on both this and a television series at the same time, Goldenberg did the score in little time and was displeased with it, understanding the rejection and agreeing with it; he did, however, still feel bad about it and for a year afterward didn't score anything. INFO. [Ernest Gold; Billy Goldenberg (leftovers).]
LES PASSAGERS -- Éric Demarsan. On July 8, 2014 (announced June 26), Music Box Records released a CD containing both the rejected score and replacement. Up until that time I had not known about this title. The announcement for the CD states that Demarsan's score wasn't quite what the producers were looking for. [Claude Bolling.]
WHITE BUFFALO -- David Shire. See my interview with Shire where I ask him about the score; HERE. [John Barry.]
1978
AGATHA -- Howard Blake. Blake can be seen as one of the trio playing in the hotel. His arrangements (Gilbert & Sullivan, etc) were retained. I e-mailed Blake at his website to ask and here is his unedited reply:
"This is true. I was both MD and composer for Agatha. (I arranged all the period music and was even in the film playing the piano.) I wrote a huge symphonic score for director Michael Apted and producer David Puttnam who were delighted with it... However Puttnam resigned and the incoming producer junked my entire score. I met Johnny Mandel in LA quite soon after he had replaced it and we compared notes."
Carl Davis re-recorded 13:06 of the score on May 20, 1995 in The Barbican London; there was no release, but a extremely hard to find bootleg. In an old interview, Blake explains that after test review of the film, there were so many positive comments about his score, but so many bad ones, that the new producer grabbed him by the throat and asked him "what the hell" he was doing (personally, my reply would have been: "thinking of how much to sue you for"). INFO. [Johnny Mandel.]
ANIMAL HOUSE -- ?????. Said the director: "They [the studio] assigned me a composer I did not want, who did a lot of mickey-mousing. I didn't like that and said No ...". [Elmer Bernstein, R.I.P..]
CASEY'S SHADOW -- Elmer Bernstein, R.I.P. INFO. [Patrick Williams.]
EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE -- Dee Barton, R.I.P.. [Steve Dorff.]
FIRST LOVE -- John Barry. Barry was hired to write a complete score, parts of which were rejected as "too mature", resulting in a hybrid song/Barry score. At that point, Barry asked his name be removed, but his name was seen as composer on the theatrical posters and there were unmistakable Barry-isms in the snippets of score that still remain. The director just couldn't make up her mind. On January 29, 2013, La La Land Records released the full score. [John Barry and crappy songs.]
1979
APOCALYPSE NOW -- David Shire. Score described as, "electronic". Shire tells in the book David Shire's The Conversation: A Film Score Guide (Juan Chattah) that he spent over a year working on the score and communication with the director, filming overseas, was spotty and rare at best. During that time he was offered "Norma Rae" and took the offer. Shire explained that when Coppola found out he took on another score while working on this one, Coppola got angry and fired him. On November 24, 2017, La La Land Records released Shire's score. INFO. [Carmine Coppola & Francis Coppola.]
CALIGULA -- Franco Mannino. A friend of the director, Mannino did a score without seeing the film, under a tight deadline, and after all that it was rejected. Described as a "beutiful" score. [Fiorenzo Carpi.]
CALIGULA -- Fiorenzo Carpi. [Bruno Nicolai (as "Paul Clamente").]
THE CHINA SYNDROME -- Michael Small, R.I.P.. Released by Intrada Records on September 14, 2009 (SOLD OUT). INFO. [No original score.]
DEFIANCE -- Basil Poledouris, R.I.P.. My "sister" site, so to speak, run by imdb.com member jorodo suggested Dominic Frontiere was rejected, but I checked into this a little. Turns out John Beal is listed as "additional music" on imdb.com, so I contacted him via his site; turns out he is a protege of Frontiere and, as far as he knows, Frontiere's score is still retained; imdb.com reflects this too by not listing Poledouris at all. Curious as to why Basil was listed at all, I contacted jorodo and asked. He said a few reliable printed sources, such as BFI's Monthly Film Bulletin, list Mr. Poledouris as the composer. Interesting. Could his score still be retained in some countries? [Dominic Frontiere, John Beal (additional).]
GUYANA: CRIME OF THE CENTURY -- Alfredo Diaz Ordaz & Ignacio Mendez. Original score retained in Mexican prints, but English language version had additional Haskell cues. This version shown in UK. [Alfred Diaz Ordaz, Jimmie Haskell.]
KRAMER VS. KRAMER -- David Shire. Shire tells in the book David Shire's The Conversation: A Film Score Guide (Juan Chattah) that he felt the film needed very little scoring because it would needlessly manipulate the viewers, thus only doing about thirty-five minutes. But then after the first preview they director and producers cut ten minutes of score, then another ten after the second preview, and even more after a third. Shire asked for a mercy killing and have all his score removed, suggesting Back source music. They did just that. [Fred Ebb, R.I.P. & John Kander.]
KRAMER VS. KRAMER -- Fred Ebb, R.I.P. & John Kander. On top of doing an arrangement of a classical music piece, EBB & Kander did a score for the film, but it was too "urban" and distracted from the emotion of the film. Ultimately the film was left with no original score. [Classical music.]
THE SEDUCTION OF JOE TYNAN -- Michael Small, R.I.P.. In a ScoreMagacine interview, Conti says:
"I did a movie with Alan Alda, the "The Senator", or something like that, maybe they changed the name. Alan was just the actor but he did not like the score in the movie he was in, and he brought me in to do the movie. He was not the Director but he had a lot to say in that movie so I worked with Alan Alda and enjoyed it very much."
. INFO. [Bill Conti.]
STALKER -- Edward Artemiev. Interview by Anneilese Varaldiev - excerpt:
"There were actually two versions of the score for "Stalker". The first one was done with an orchestra alone-no synthesizer-but Tarkovsky rejected it, which surprised me, because he loved the idea of live music-making. The second version, which he accepted, was basically created on the Synti-100 synthesizer, along with solo acoustic instruments that were extensively manipulated using various sound processors. At that time, Tarkovsky was very interested in Zen Buddhism, and wanted the music to reflect certain contemplative elements that are part of Eastern religion and philosophy. To achieve this quality, I borrowed from the Indian classical tradition of using a single basic tonality, whose rhythmic patterns are slowly and constantly changing, creating a background over which the melody of a solo instrument can soar."
[Edward Artemiev.]
1980
THE EARTHLING -- Bruce Smeaton. Smeaton's score retained on Australian prints. [Dick DeBenedictis.]
GAUGUIN THE SAVAGE (TV) -- Elizabeth Swados. In her book, Listening Out Loud (1988), Swados recounts how the executive producer did not like her music at the recording session. She used drums and voices to evoke Tahiti, and he said "I wanted strings!". During a later section, he said "Now she's giving me Stravinsky! I wanted strings!" She was replaced. [Gerald Fried.]
THE HUNTER -- Michel Legrand. While technically American movies carry Legrand's score (with some of Bernstein's in) and some overseas carry Charles Bernstein's score, I decided to count this as this wasn't an overseas rescore scenario; Paramount decided the replace Legrand's score, which in the end they kept here anyway; doesn't really fit on any list here. [Charles Bernstein (Europe), Michel Legrand (USA).]
THE MISSING LINK -- Ray Ellis, R.I.P.. In a 1984 Soundtrack! magazine interview, Budd says "it was a hair-raising experience!" after the producers rejected a score and gave him just six days to write and record his. [Alan Brewer & Anna Pepper (U.S. version); Roy Budd (overseas version), Paul Fishmann (additional, and electronic music); Leo Sayer & Les Davidson: "Igua's theme" (perhaps they did a rejected score, too?).]
MURDER BY MAIL -- Bernardo Segall. Retitled SCHIZOID, with new score by Hundley (later known as Craig Huxley). [Craig Hundley.]
SERIAL -- Kenny Ascher. Described as a very good sounding score. On July 24, 2015, Quartet Records released Ascher's score along with Schifrin's as a 2CD set. INFO. [Lalo Schifrin.]
THE SHINING -- Wendy Carlos & Rachel Elkind. The LP (Bootleg?) contains more. [Classical music; Wendy Carlos & Rachel Elkind (leftovers).]
USED CARS -- Ernest Gold, R.I.P.. Angela Morley orchestrated Gold's score. Williams had three weeks to do his score. On July 31, 2012, La La Land Records released both the used and rejected score. The upcoming Twilght Time DVD release will contain the rejected score, reportedly put back in the film as an option to view. [Patrick Williams; Ernest Gold (leftovers).]
1981
BUDDY BUDDY -- Pete Rugolo. A friend of Rugolo, at the time Schifrin didn't know Rugolo had recorded a score, but if he did, would not have accepted the assignement. [Lalo Schifrin.]
CATTLE ANNIE AND THE LITTLE BRITCHES -- Alex North. North's biography makes a short mention of his score not used for this movie. Like "Sounder" (another rejected score), the Motion Picture Academey has the tapes -- and paper work. [Sahn Berti & Tom Slocum -- their only score.]
CHU CHU AND THE PHILLY FLASH -- Maurice Jarre. In an old interview (click on INFO for full related text) Jarre states that when shown on TV, his score is still retained (can anyone confirm that?). In a 1985 interview with Soundtrack! magazine, Jarre states everybody was happy with his score and things were fine until Alan Arkin and his wife, co-producers on the film, decided to can the score; director David Lowell Rich was fired and sued. INFO. [Pete Rugolo.]
THE BUNKER -- John Barry. Apprently some cuts of the film shown on TV still contained Barry's rejected score, as in 2013 a cut of the film obviously recorded from TV still has Barry's score in tact, was loaded to Youtube; a very sparse score with hints of his other works, including "Dances With Wolves". [Brad Fiedel.]
LOOKER -- Pino Donaggio. [Barry DeVorzon.]
MODERN PROBLEMS -- Marvin Hamlisch, R.I.P.. INFO. [Dominic Frontiere.]
NEIGHBORS -- Tom Scott. Similarly to Goldsmith's "S*P*Y*S", Bill Conti's replacement score is the worst he ever wrote. The Belushi biography book, "Wired" (by Bob Woodward) supposedly has some details. On November 19, 2007, Varese Sarabande Club released it with Conti's score, limited to 1,500 copies. [Bill Conti.]
SILENCE OF THE NORTH -- Michael Conway Baker. When inquiring with Mr. Baker about another title, he said he did a score for this film which was not used. While only one composer credited, the score was done by five composers in a semi precurser "Pirates of the Caribbean" way. Some of his score may still be in the film. [Allan Macmillan & four other composers (which may include songwriter Neil Young, and Jerrold Immel).]
SHOT THE SUN DOWN/ AKA: SANTA FE 1836 -- Bruce Langhorne. According to an interview with David Leeds, the film's creator: "The original version had a largely acoustic and slide guitar score by Bruce Langhorne." And an unused title song by Kinky Friedman. Interview HERE. [Ed Bogus & Judy Munsen.]
WOLCOTT (mini series) -- Andy McKay. Said to be four days to rescore. [Frank Ricotti.]
WOLFEN -- Craig Safan. Safan released his score, 58:31, on a composer promo through Intrada Records. On July 24, 2012, Intrada Records officially released the score (from better tapes and with two+ minutes more score); Intrada also released, seperately, Horner's score (which sold out January 14, 2013, shortly after being discontinued). INFO+v. [James Horner.]
1982
AUTHOR! AUTHOR! -- Johnny Mandel. Released by Varese Sarabande (along with Grusin's score). [Dave Grusin.]
DOCTOR BUTCHER, M.D. -- Nico Fidenco. Fidenco's score was retained on original release. It was refitted with an electronic score by Sear for the U.S. reissue. [Walter Sear.]
HIGHPOINT -- John Addison, R.I.P.. In an interview Young said Addison made it an "action comedy", and he thought the score was a "fantastic job". In an interview Addison spoke saying this was his first rejected score and that everybody loved the score but when it was mixed and previewed to the studio, one studio head didn't like it and everybody from the film agreed, wanting to keep being employed. [Christopher Young.]
EXPERIENCE PREFERRED ... BUT NOT ESSENTIAL -- John Scott. Portman was asked by David Puttnam to rescore the film. Scott recieves the credit: "Addditional Music by" in the end credits. [Rachel Portman; John Scott (leftovers).]
FIVE DAYS ONE SUMMER -- Carl Davis. Test audiences had problems with the film, but the director ignored those problems and decided canning the score was the answer; he even wanted to replaced Bernstein's score with one (that didn't end up happening, by Georges Delerue). Said Davis in an interview:
"In my career I had only one score rejected. That was by Fred Zinnemann, I did a score for FIVE DAYS ONE SUMMER. He didn't like my musical description of the scenery -- which I do in silent films as well. Zinnemann said, "What do I need a horn over the Alps? I've been hearing that all my life." He didn't want any music at all. He just wanted wind. So ever though that was painful, it was quite instructive."
[Elmer Bernstein, R.I.P.]
JINXED! -- Lalo Schifrin. Late composer Richard Shores, when mentioning other rejected scores (all of which he listed were already on the list), said Schifrin had a, quote, "clever score" for the film thrown out. [Miles Goodman, Howard Roberts.]
NEXT OF KIN -- Klaus Schulze. Schulze did a score which was rejected; the finished film used pre-exisint tracks by the composer. Both Vagelis and Tangerine Dream were considered, but unavailable. The blu-ray released in November, 2018 includes an extras section where it talks about the rejected score. [No original score; Klaus Schultze (stock music).]
TWO OF A KIND -- Bill Conti. As pointed out in an FSM article, Conti's replacement was so late in the game that his name is still on the CD. [Patrick Williams.]
1983
BLACK RIDER -- Rogier van Otterloo. According to him, on is website HERE. [Clous van Mechelen.]
THE JIGSAW MAN -- Georges Garvarentz. Song by Garvarentz retained. [John Cameron.]
THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE -- Howard Blake. Originally Blake did a darker more dissonant score, but the White House felt differently and wanted a change (whom at the White House, was not specified). So Blake went back, wrote a lighter score, and recorded the new one; a rare instance of a composer replacing his own score. [Howard blake.]
THE MACK -- Willie Hutch. Film was originally scored by Hutch, but then when re-released ten years later, they replaced his score. Hutch's score is available on CD. [Alan Silvestri.]
MANIMAL: "Pilot" -- Stu Philips. Doing a synth heavy score, the studio was displeased with the pilot and some reshoots were done and a new score recorded. [Paul Chihara (scored the pilot; Alan Silvestri did the rest of the seven episodes).]
MIKE'S MURDER -- Joe Jackson. Songs by Jackson retained and supposedly some score is left in; film was pushed back for release. [John Barry.]
NEVER CRY WOLF -- Robert Hughes. In a 1986 interview with CinemaScore, Isham states Hughes was brought early in production to score the film, and did an incredible amount of research (which Isham prevailed himself of), including on Inuit music, and the howls of wolves (since reportedly they have been known to howl in certain scales). [Jerry Neff.]
NEVER CRY WOLF -- Jerry Neff. In an interview by Peter Simons, Isham said:
"Director Carol Ballard had already rejected two scores when he heard a demo by Mark Isham. "I did a couple of cues and he liked it. I got to do the whole film, but that wasn't easy," Isham recalls. "I really had no idea what I was doing, but soon I noticed I did have a talent for writing filmscores. I worked closely with editors Mark Adler and Todd Bucklehide and they taught me a lot."

And also said: "...especially after having had a couple of scores recorded and thrown out."
Neff was a percussionist who performed on some scores (that's about all I can find on him thus far). [Mark Isham; Robert Hughes (leftovers, with a special thanks).]
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES -- Georges Delerue, R.I.P.. Delerue re-recorded an 11:48 suite of his score on his Varese CD The London Sessions Volume Three. Author Ray Bradbury raved about James Horner's replacement score, said it was one of the things he loved most about the film. Also been said that the director chassed Horner around with a tape of Delerue's work. November, 2011, Universal France released the incomplete scores to two of Delerue's four rejected scores (not counting "Twins"). And finally, on December 8, 2015, Intrada Records released the score from better masters. The complete score, plus two alternates and all source music Delerue wrote, is on a crappy sounding bootleg. For years I reported that "supposedly" a boot with excellent sound, of Delerue's score, existed, and finally in October of 2009, I attained this boot -- the complete rejected score, in darn near excellent sound. INFO. [James Horner; Greig McRitchie (additional).]
STROKER ACE -- RY Cooder. INFO. [Al Capps.]
TIGHTROPE OF TERROR -- David Farnon. His father (Robert Farnon) conducted. [Ed Welch.]
1984
A TALENT FOR MURDER (TV movie) -- ?????. When commenting about the score in a series on his works for THIS blog (link now dead), he says the film had a score but they hated it; he came in and did a score on piano in seven hours (this currently beats out "Wet Gold" for Fastest Written Score). [William Goldstein.]
ANGEL -- Ken Lauber. Safan had one week to replace a score by Lauber, of "Tales From the Darkside" scoring fame. In a February, 2017 interview with Donald P. Borchers (conducted by Jon Aanensen), Borchers said the film was previewed with licensed songs in New York and after it was over, attendee Andy Worho approached them and said the music wasn't fitting the drama; Borchers had a new idea for an ending, so the studio let him shoot a new ending and have the film rescored. Borchers said Safan saved the film. [Craig Safan.]
BLOOD SIMPLE -- ?????. In the book Soundscape: The School of Sound Lectures, Burwell says the first composer -- which he was not told about -- did a "very electronic" score which the Cohen brothers weren't liking, but then the composer "lost it"; the Cohen brothers still don't know if it was a computer crash, the tapes were misplaced or what, but the score was M.I.A. and they decided to go with a new composer; Burwell further goes on in another book to say it was done by a "local band", who also did sound effects for it (Jun Mizumachi seems to fit the bill). [Carter Burwell.]
THE COTTON CLUB -- Ralph Burns, R.I.P.. Supposedly some score left in, which includes instrumental re-workings of Duke Ellington pieces. Coppola brought Barry in to re-score the film (Coppala replacing the previous director who was fired; don't know who) as Burns' score didn't sound like the period music he was hoping for. INFO. [John Barry; Bob Wilber (instrumental re-workings of period songs); Ralph Burns (leftovers?).]
COUNTRY -- Mark Isham. Isham lists this among his scores in Who's Who in America. Some of his score is still in the film, and one cue on the Gross score CD ("Chants") is by him. [Charles Gross; Darol Anger, Mike Marshall, George Winston, Gary Anderson (additional); Mark Isham (leftovers).]
DUNE -- Jade Warrior. Apparently Jade Warrior sent in a number of samples, but they got lost. The studio, thinking JW wasn't interested, went with Toto. [Toto.]
GARBO TALKS -- Bob James. If kept, would have been his second known (and last known) film score. So enraged was James over the replacement, that he had issued a restraining order against producer Elliot Kastner and MGM to stop use of his score in the promotional trailers, which at the time were reportedly using pieces of his score, and Copyright infringment and emotional distress. INFO (pending). [Cy Coleman.]
GREYSTOKE: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN, LORD OF THE APES -- ?????. As stated by John Scott in an interview, the film had already had two [score] efforts attempted. He also declines to name who the other composer was, but both Vangelis and John Corigliano (who was supposedly busy) are the only two names known to have been associated with this film. Vangelis being a recluse who doesn't even like to do interviews (despite having done at least one), I can't just contact him and find out. [Norman Del Mar.]
GREYSTOKE: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN, LORD OF THE APES -- Norman Del Mar. This second attempt consisted of arrangements and re-recordings of existing classical music (recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra). Scott went on further to comment in another interview (conducted by Patrick Russ in 2016) that he saw the cut of the film with this music and that he felt it was pushing the audience away rather than drawing them in. The director knew it wasn't going to work and somebody from the orchestra suggested Scott should score it (who had, coincidently, worked with the director before on commercials and at least one documentary). Though the film credits him with additional music, I was told on a film score message board that it was a contractual obligation and that none of the music he re-recorded is in the film. Scott also stated in the same 2016 interview that the film was heavily re-shot and re-edited and that if the whole thing was put back together, that it would probably be five to six hours long (also stating many scenes he was writing for, simply were cut from the film). [John Scott; some existing classical music (with pieces by Edward Elgar).]
MISUNDERSTOOD -- Philip Sarde. In October, 2016, Quartet Records released Sarde's score. Maurice Gibb's demo score cues were not included. [Michael Hoppe.]
ORDEAL BY INNOCENCE -- Pino Donaggio. Donaggio released 17:36 of his score on a CD with his music for Going Bananas and Deja Vu. On February 28, 2011, Kritzerland Records released Pino's score (and not the replacement). Dave Brubeck's replacement score was one of the most jarringly inappropriate scores in film music history. [Dave Brubeck.]
SLAPSTICK OF ANOTHER KIND -- Michel Legrand. The Varese soundtrack LP included Legrand's music on one side and Morton Stevens' replacement score on the other as well as the European film version may be the first instance of a rejected score release. [Morton Stevens; Berrington Van Campen (additional).]
STREETS OF FIRE -- James Horner. A re-recorded suite is available. Reportedly Horner actually wrote three different scores. The man obviously wanted his Cooder. In an FSM poll on Unreleased Horner Scores, "Streets of Fire" got 28 votes (4.1%). Interestingly enough, Cooder used a tape of his rejected score to "Stoker Ace" to get the job. INFO and suite. [Ry Cooder.]
SWING SHIFT -- Bruce Langhorn. As recanted in a 1998 interview with the director, Warner Bros. took the film, put new scenes in it, and threw out the score (he doesn't name the previous composer) -- much to his dismay. Still furious over the whole thing, the director went on to say in another interview over the original score: "Langhorne wrote original live music in the style of 1940s big bands and 1940s jazz, and fused it into the dramatic score that he had written. Had I not been fired, had Swing Shift not been re-edited, had Bruce’s score not been trashed, he would undoubtedly have gotten a fucking Oscar nomination for his extraordinary work on that movie. He delivered the goods. To experience the horror of seeing work of that quality thrown into the trash by Warner Brothers ... I have always suspected that it was on the heels of this that Bruce chucked it in and moved to Hawaii.". [Patrick Williams.]
1984 -- Dominic Muldowney. During the recording, Muldowney and the orchestra were told they [the studio] were not going to use the score, but had to finish recording it. Almost all of his score was replaced in the film with songs by the Eurythmics (and supposedly score by them as well). The original Region 2 DVD release used Muldowney's score. David Bowie was asked to the score the film, but turned it down. In a 1985 interview in the Chicago Tribune, the duo expressed their outrage over the backlash against the score and ow the director was reported to have called it "crass rubbish". [Songs by the Eurythmics; Dominic Muldowney (leftovers).]
V: THE FINAL BATTLE (Episode 2) -- Barry DeVorzon & Joseph Conlan. The producers didn't want the DeVorzon synth score, so they hired McCarthy. A quote from an interview on McCarthy's [now dead] website: "I got the call and had nine days before it aired to score it." Composer Joseph Conlan composed the original theme and score with DeVorzon. [Dennis McCarthy; DeVorzon & Conlan (leftovers).]
+WET GOLD (TV movie) -- John Scott. In an old interview Scott mentions how the producers kept fiddling with the score until so close to the end that the replacement composer had hours to do a new one. [Sylvester Levay and who know how many other guys.]
1985
A.D. -- Anthony Burgess, R.I.P.. It is unknown how many episodes of this five-part mini series he scored before being replaced. Burgess is better known as a writer, and indeed he wrote on this mini series. [Lalo Schifrin; Anthony Burgess (leftovers).]
CREATOR -- ?????. Levay explained in an interview posted on October 6, 2015 (conducted by Jon Aanensen), that he replaced an already done score by a "famous composer" who he says he would not mention the name of, and that there was no money left for an orchestra. [Sylvester Levay.]
CRIMEWAVE -- Joseph LoDuca. The producers, against the wishes of the director, removed LoDuca and another person. LoDuca is still listed on imdb.com as "jazz music". In an interview, LoDuca says he composed "big band music". Unknown how much is left in. In an interview, Christopher Young mentions trying to get the film after someone else was rejected. [Arlon Ober, Joseph LoDuca (leftovers?).]
DOCTOR WHO: "THE MARK OF RANI (Part 1)" -- John Lewis, R.I.P.. Never having scored an episode of the series before, he was asked to score the two-parter. After completing the score for the first episode, he died. Instead of keeping the score, they replaced it. The DVD has an option to watch the film with Lewis' score too. [Jonathan Gibbs.]
HEAVEN HELP US -- James Horner. Horner did essentially, three different scores for the film, each different in approach than the other. A very obscure bootleg 2CD set reports to have all three scores on it. [James Horner.]
HET BETTERE KLUID -- Loek Dikker. All his score was rejected except for one cue, which was re-used over & over again. [Loek Dikker.]
THE JOURNEY OF NATTY GANN -- Elmer Bernstein, R.I.P.. Bernstein's music for Natty Gann was featured in the film's trailer, and later in the trailer for "Benji the Hunted". Intrada Records was going to release it, but then it just didn't happen; but on June 11, 2008, it was released by Varese Sarabande with two other rejected scores by bernstein (since sold out). INFO. [James Horner; Elmer Bernstein (tiny bit of leftovers).]
MOONLIGHTING: "THE LAST IN THE IRON MASK" -- Richard Lewis Warren. The director of this episode didn't care for it, even though Warren already had a couple episodes under the belt. Warren's score was accidently used instead on the DVD. When I asked about the score in my interview with Mr. Warren, he wasn't even aware the score had been replaced. [Alf Clausen.]
THE NEW KIDS -- Harry Manfredini. According to Manfredini. A horror site claimed the studio was unhappy with the score. [Michel Rubini.]
THE NEW KIDS -- Michel Rubini. Hired to do a new, hipper synth score and two songs, the composer became the second victim of the film. [Lalo Schifrin.]
STICK -- Bob Florence, R.I.P.. An arranger of music for song aritsts, Florence returned to score his second movie for Burt Reynolds, but after doing the score supposedly somebody in the higher ups talked Reynolds into replacing it. Supposedly Florence was not the only person to have a score tossed on the film. INFO. [Barry De Vorzon & Joseph Conlan; Bob Florence (leftovers).]
THE NEW TWILIGHT ZONE: "BUT CAN SHE TYPE?" -- Morton Stevens, R.I.P.. His score for segments one and three were kept. [Merl Saunders & the Grateful Dead.]
VISIONQUEST -- Jack Nitzsche, R.I.P.. [Tangerine Dream.]
1986
THE ADVENTURES OF MILO & OTIS -- David McHugh. When inquiring with McHugh about another score, he mentioned having a score rejected for this film, which he mentioned was his favorite score he has done. Decision to replace the score came from one of the film's producers. INFO (pending). [Ryuichi Sakamoto, Michael Boddicker (US version).]
CASTLE IN THE SKY -- Joe Hisaishi. "...One other thing that bears mentioning about the dub is that, to go along with the redub, Disney asked original composer Joe Hisaishi to rescore the movie, adding the backing of a full symphony orchestra and reducing the moments of music-free "silence" in the film (since apparently American audiences don't deal with lack of music very well). In most places, this new score works fairly well...it is still Hisaishi, after all. The only really jarring moment for me was Pazu's trumpet solo, which was unaccompanied in the Japanese version but became the centerpiece of a totally unnecessary orchestral version in the English." HERE. [Joe Hisaishi.]
CRY OF THE CITY (AKA: KNIGHTS OF THE CITY) -- Tony Berg. Berg created, as described, "a brilliant electronic soundtrack that was fresh, full of emotional subtleties and pathos."; though the composer provided a score the director wanted, late on the film's executive producer was arrested for racketeering, and then the lawyers took over "creative duties"; of their own accord, they brought in Misha Segal. One cue from Berg's score is retained, a "muzak" source piece written for an office scene. A couple listings show Mark Isham -- I have no idea what he may or may not have done for the film. [Misha Segal; Tony Berg (one cue retained).]
FIREFIGHTER -- John Addison. In a 1994 hand-written corospondance (auctioned off), Addison replied about the score saying, quote, "My score for Firefighter was thrown out by the network, much to the fury of the producer, Greg Simms, who was thrilled with the score.". The composer also said in that letter he donated most of his scores to Brigham Young University, so presumably they have the tapes. [Dana Kaproff.]
THE GOLDEN CHILD -- John Barry, R.I.P.. A few Barry cues were retained in the final film, and 7:06 of his music was included on the soundtrack CD, including a Nancy Wilson song, "The Greatest Man in the World". He was rejected from Once Bitten and used his themes from it for The Golden Child and then was rejected from that film. Hired in September, 1986 to score it, and according to the producers, it took five sessions and the score had 92 musicians (fully recorded; Colombier did his score in two weeks); this was after Alan Silvestri was asked to score it and met with the producers, but for some reason went with Barry instead. On July 12, 2011, La La Land Records released Barry's complete score, along with the replacement. Colombier stated in an FSM interview he was asked to score the movie first, but nothing happened and time went by and the producers who wanted Barry, got Barry, but once again a dreaded test screening occured and he said Bary's score tested very negatively; originally he was asked to only replace some cues, but didn't like the idea since his music would be different and under the condition he replace the whole score, he accepted and did it in two weeks. INFO. [Michel Colombier, R.I.P.; Irving Berlin (additional; stock), John Barry (leftovers, small bits).]
HARD TO BE GOD -- Georges Delerue, R.I.P. According to Delerue's film credits, at his website, run by his widow, he did a score which was not used; I take the site's word at it, as I know nothing about it. [Jürgen Fritz.]
HOWARD THE DUCK -- Lalo Schifrin. INFO. [Thomas Dolby.]
HOWARD THE DUCK -- Thomas Dolby. Dobly was hired by the studio to do songs for the film, initially, but the deal was sealed when he asked, and was also hired to provide the film's score. Recorded from February to July, 1986, Dolby's score was initially going to have cues on the MCA Records CD, but when the score was replaced, that changed; some cues are retained in the film and he is credited with "additional music". I have also had the names Sylvester Levy and Michael Colombier mentioned (Levay says in this interview that he was hired to replace a score, but in the end Barry is credited, suggesting maybe he did a score that was not used as well). INFO (for Dolby, coming). [John Barry; Thomas Dolby (leftovers).]
INVADERS FROM MARS -- Christopher Young. Young wrote and recorded five cues. Later those five cues were used a basis for a longer re-recording for a CD. Release: Edel/Cinerame 0022032CIN. Invaders totals 34:17 and total time of the disc is 71:44. In 2008, Intrada Records released a 2CD set of Young's score and the replacement score (SOLD OUT). Even though he was replaced, he retained credit, and the replacement composers were relegated to a "additional music" credit. [David Storrs and Sylvester Levay (as "Additional music"); Christopher Young (leftovers).]
TAKE BACK THE NIGHT (AKA: THE LADIES CLUB / or THE VIOLATED) -- Shirley Walker, R.I.P.. Yes, her first. Replaced by Schifrin, can't be a good way to start your career's beginnings. Walker did a good sparce score for a film that was later re-cut and re-named. [Lalo Schifrin.]
LEGEND -- Jerry Goldsmith. 70:54 of the score was released on a Silva CD, to be eventually reissued. The Goldsmith score was included in foreign prints, and will be heard again on the upcoming "Director's Cut" DVD; of interesting note: when TD saw a cut of the film for the first time, it still had Jerry's score in it. TD's stated they had free reign in doing the music. Over the years in interviews Jerry would be asked what his favorite score of his was and in the handful he mentioned, this was one of them. The complete score, plus un-used and alternates appears on a 2CD bootleg. [Tangerine Dream.]
RATBOY -- ?????. Said the director, Sondra Locke, in her book, Clint wouldn't let her hire the composer she wanted and when he did let her get one, the score was rejected because the test audiences reaction was, quote: "it was so over-the-top that the screening audience laughed at it". There were a handfull of songs credited to songwriter, occassional film & TV composer Steve Dorff in the end credits -- perhaps he did the score that was replaced. [Lennie Niehaus.]
TOUCH AND GO -- Georges Delerue, R.I.P. Bootleg. INFO. [Sylvester Levay.]
WHO IS JULIA? -- Maurice Jarre. INFO (pending). [Robert Drasnin.]
1987
+THE BELLY OF AN ARCHITECT -- Glenn Branca. Recommended by Nyman to do the score, difficulties with the directors who really just wanted Nyman all along lead Branca to being replaced. Unknown whether Nyman ever was onboard himself. INFO. [Wim Mertens; Glenn Branca (leftovers).]
DR. WHO: "PARADISE TOWERS" (Season 24) -- David Snell. A review of the DVD says the score can be found under "audio settings", which I assume would mean you can hear it in place of the replacement score. . The producer, John Nathan-Turner, allowed a non in-house BBC composer to score an episode of the series, but was becoming unsure of the scoring; he rejected it and Snell offered to rescore it for free, as needed, but Turner had already picked a replacement composer. [Keff McCullough.]
THE FOURTH PROTOCOL -- Francis Shaw. After completing his score, and even dubbing it into the film, the decision came down to not used it; despite that, three of his cues are still in the film (some sources erroneously list him as "co-composer"). [Lalo Schifrin; Francis Shaw (leftovers).]
LEONARD PART 6 -- Henry Mancini, R.I.P.. [Elmer Bernstein, R.I.P..]
LES PATTERSON SAVES THE WORLD -- Tim Finn. See the book Torn Music (Hubai) for further details. [Bruce Rowland.]
NO MAN'S LAND -- ?????. In a 1989 Soundtrack! magazine interview, Basil states this was a replacement score and he had four weeks to do it, and he decided against listening to the previous score. [Basil Poledouris.]
NUTS -- ?????. Not liking the previous score, with the film's premiere coming up shortly, she decided to do the score herself, marking what I believe to be her first scoring foray. [Barbra Streisand; Jeremy Lubbock (additional).]
PRISON -- Ken Harrison. Harrison worked closely together with the film's director, Renny Harlin, with a score both were exicted to present, but when an executive producer on the film heard it, he did not like it and thought it didn't sound classical enough and the score was not used. Intrada Records released the replacement score but did not include Harrison's original effort. Harrison was one out of multiple composers who auditioned to get the job and won out with his demo. [Richard Band & Christopher L. Stone.]
THE RUNNING MAN -- ?????. In an interview with Red Bull Music Academy in Tokyo (October 22, 2014), Faltermeyer said the film was done, "finished, mixed and delivered", but the production company didn't like the score and said to get rid of it and get another composer (Harold does not name the composer). Harold went on to say they left him alone throughout the whole production to do his own thing. Faltermeyer also said in his book when he delivered the score he got a "Thank you" and that was it. [Harold Faltermeyer; Vassal Benford (additional).]
THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW -- Babatunde Olatunji, R.I.P.. You may be scratching your head as much as I, but the film's makers wanted something different and they hired this African percussionist who had never done a score before, to score the film, but it resulted in the score being rejected, but that's not where the story ends... [Jeff Koz & Jesse Frederick.]
THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW -- Jeff Koz & Jesse Frederick. When we last left off, a score by an African percussionist was rejected, but the film's makers still liked it's general feel, so they hired the composer duo Jeff Koz & Jesse Frederick to "build" upon Olatunji's score; Koz & Frederick had, at the time, gained some attention for a couple films they scored, but this was to be their sour note as their score was rejected -- even though it incorporated Olatunji's score. But again, the story still doesn't end here... [Charles Bernstein.]
THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW -- Charles Bernstein. Cue Bernstein who in turn "builds" upon the score Koz & Frederick had made that built upon Olatunji's score. Finally, they rejected a third score and went with Fiedel. Mr. Fiedel did not "build" upon the multi composer conglomeration of rejected scores that came before him, but rather provided his own. This is still the strangest thing I have ever come across. Babtunde Olatunji, by the way, still receives a credit for special percussion tracks; a couple scenes in the film for essentially dancing source, should be Olatunji's. [Brad Fiedel.]
SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL -- Ira Newborn. Like "2001: A Space Odyssey", two composers were doing a score at once, unknown to each other at the time; for whatever reason, the director and John Hughes thought this was a good idea. [Stephen Hague & John Musser; Hague credited a a producer on ten songs, as well as one of those being co-written by him.]
THE SUPERNATURALS -- Maurice Gibb, R.I.P.. Member of the Bee Gees, his score is only found on a four-track bootleg. The imdb.com "Trivia for" page says his cameo in the film is still there and that there is a cut of the movie floating around with Gibb's score still intact. [Robert O. Ragland.]
+WALL STREET -- Jerry Goldsmith, R.I.P. Goldsmith has said he did not record anything, but Alex Kitaman Ho, the movie's producer says he did. Alex also said Goldsmith was fired during a session; Oliver Stone sort of backed this up when he said in a 2015 interview with FilmMakerMagazine (conducted by Jim Hemphill) that Goldsmith was fired because they weren't happy with the music and had paid Jerry a lot of money (the firing reportedly did not sit well with musicians). Jerry tried re-using a theme in "Alien Nation", but that score was rejected, then ultimately found a home in "Russia House". INFO. [Stewart Copland.]
THE RITES OF SUMMER (AKA: WHITE WATER SUMMER) -- John Scott. Recorded in Munich, the score was dumped at the beheast of the studio, and a prologue was filmed. INFO. [Michael Boddicker.]
1988
OUTER HEAT (AKA: ALIEN NATION) -- Jerry Goldsmith, R.I.P.. Goldsmith reportedly reused one his themes for his score to The Russia House. The score made it to a few boots. It has reportedly "shitty" sound and is also reportedly a really bad score -- a matter of opinion I am sure. Varese Sarabande released the score, limited to 3,000 copies but it sold out; and the score was re-issued by Kritzerland Records on September 30, 2013 (that time around including the replacement score). INFO. [Curt Sobel.]
+APARTMENT ZERO -- Astor Piazzola. In a Soundtrack.net interview, replacement composer Cmiral comments that Astor was originally hired, did part of the score, but it wasn't liked. Cmiral had 10 days to do 45 minutes of score. [Elia Cmiral.]
THE BIG BLUE -- Eric Serra. Bill Conti's replacement score was only heard in the U.S., and was never released on CD. Serra's score was released on CD throughout the world, and later in a two-disc set [86:29]. It was also isolated on an overseas DVD version. A bootleg of Conti's score is available. [Bill Conti - CD.]
COCKTAIL -- Maurice Jarre. INFO. [J. Peter Robison.]
DEAD BANG -- Michael Kamen. Some of Kamen's score was included in the final film, and he received an "Additional Music" credit. [Gary Chang, Michael Kamen (additional).]
DRACULA'S WIDOW -- Jim Fox. The film's producer and it's director disagreed over various aspects, from it's genre to it's editing, to it's score. Fox chose to side with the director's musical vision (the director was his friend and former student), knowing that the producer would fire him if he did so. This was Fox's very first score.
As an interesting side note: A brief fugal use of Dies Irae appeared in the rejected score. I mention this because some score fans like to keep track of scores that use this theme. [James B. Campbell (whom used to orchestrate for Silvestri).]
ELVIRA: MISTRESS OF THE DARK -- ?????. Campbell's first sole scoring job was a rush replacement. [James B. Campbell.]
FRESH HORSES -- David Mansfield. When e-mailing the kind Mr. Mansfield to clear up, among a couple titles, "Miss Firecracker", he said he recorded a score for this movie but producer Jimmy Weintraub didn't like the score, so ... bye-bye; also said it was a personal favorite of his, and that he still gets BMI(?) checks, so some might be left in. [Patrick Williams, David Foster; David Mansfield (leftovers?).]
GHOST TOWN -- Harvey R. Cohen, R.I.P.. The film, like most typical Hollywood films, was being rushed through production so it could make an American market by a certain date (Feb. to March). The score was still in a Beverly Center screening, but to the composer's surprise, when the film opened in November -- only about three cues remained. The rest were cues by Richard Band from his previous works. [Richard Band (non original); Harvey R. Cohen, R.I.P. (leftovers).]
HELLRAISER -- Coil. Vinyl and CD info HERE. [Christopher Young.]
LIFE ON THE FLIPSIDE -- Al Cooper. In an August, 2020 interview (conducted by Jon Aanensen), Truman tells that Universal wasn't happy with it and wanted to go in a new direction, so Tim had about four days to do a replacement score. Don Johnson called him up to let him know Universal was happy with his replacement score. The pilot did not get icked up for series. [Tim Truman.]
AREN'T YOU EVEN GONNA KISS ME GOODBYE? (AKA: A NIGHT IN THE LIFE OF JIMMY REARDON) -- Elmer Bernstein, R.I.P. Bernstein's score was retained for European and Australian prints. Can someone get the scoring credits from the end title scrawl? The score was not released by the Varese Sarabande CD Club with Conti's score because the masters are missing. A special Director's Cut of the film was released with Bernstein's score re-instated. INFO. [Bill Conti; Elmer Bernstein (two leftover source cues).]
MAN BEHIND THE SUN -- ?????. In an interview the director states he "... instantly disliked the score ..." and only used a few minutes of it in the film. I don't know if he replaced it with another composer or not (tried and failed to find out who scored it, though I had found the names Wong Lap-Ping and Man Lok-Hong) as there is very little score in the film (a dramatic orchestral work). [?????.]
MISSISSIPPI BURNING -- Bruce Broughton. INFO (coming...). [Trevor Jones.]
PAPERHOUSE -- Stanley Myers. According to the Trivia page for the film on IMDb, even though Myers is credited, his score was rejected and a new one by Zimmer was done. [Hans Zimmer.]
STARS AND BARS -- Elmer Bernstein, R.I.P.. Bernstein's score [40:51] was released on a Varese CD Club disc (can someone send me the credits?). I believe this title is out of print; see Official CDs. INFO. [Stanley Myers.]
THE TELEPHONE -- Christopher Young. Originally a jazz source-like score was refused and Young was made to do new score, copying other composers; in other words, he had a bad time. The first score was more akin to "Rear Window", than the new one. [Christopher Young.]
THE UNHOLY -- Fernando Fonseca. The 2017 Blu-ray release of the film contains selections from Fonseca's score. Fonseca also wrote on the film and did production design for it. [Roger Bellon; Fernando Fonseca (leftovers).]
YOUNG GUNS -- James Horner. Bootleg tracklisting. Go to the new website of woodwind instrument player Tony Hinnigan to hear a 0:30 re-recording sample (can buy whole cue). Themes were later recycled into "Braveheart". In an FSM poll on Unreleased Horner Scores, "Young Guns" got 46 votes (6.7%). Horner himself has sat on the score not wanting it to be released, so that re-recording cue is all you can hope for. INFO. [Anthony Marinelli & Brian Banks - Boot: 17 tracks - 28:39 + one cue on a promo from Marinelli: "Bill's Hat", which may or may not be on the boot.]
1989
THE ABYSS -- ?????. The orchestra musician who told me he worked on it, has yet to recall the composer's name; I had assumed Robert Garrett, who is credited on IMDb with "additional music" for the "Special Edition", might be the person, but he was not (Michael Sterns, who did the trailer music, may have done the rejected score). INFO (empty for now). [Alan Silvestri.]
ALIENATOR -- Chuck Cirino. While credited for the score ... none of his score actually appears in the movie. Oops. INFO. [John Bigham, Michael Bishop.]
BATMAN -- Roger Nelson (AKA: Prince). The recent Tim Burton/Elfman mega boxset had a revelation in the liner notes reportedly by fans mention tidbits from it, among it was that Prince -- on top of the songs he did for the film, in fact did a compelte score which was rejected. The notes reportedly describe Prince's score as: "much smaller, much more rock n' roll, nothing like Danny's score" and "small and intimate". Chalk this up as one of the oddest entries on my site, and baffling as to what it sounds like, and why Burton didn't hire Elfman straight away after Pee Wee. Even more confusing is that Elfman stated in an interview he came up with the theme for the movie while walking on the set a good bit before the film was completed, suggesting Prince did his score to an incomplete film. [Danny Elfman.]
CYBORG -- James Saad & Anthony 'Tony' Riparetti. Suite on this CD. Some score retained. In April, 2011, Howlin' Wolf Records will release the rejected score. [Kevin Bassinson; Anthony Riparetti (leftovers).]
I LOVE YOU PERFECT (TV movie) -- Bob Cobert. Reportedly, the producers were so traumatized by the way Cobert treated them, that they tossed his score. INFO . [Yanni.]
JACKNIFE -- Mark Isham. A small group score, which ironically Broughton's was not all too different from. INFO. [Bruce Broughton.]
SAY ANYTHING... -- Anne Dudley. Edits and whims of the director kept having Dudley rescoring and rescoring the film until it was just easier to get a new composer. Some of her score is left in the film. [Richard Gibbs, Nancy Wilson (additional?); Anne Dudley (leftovers).]
THE SEINFELD CHRONICLES: "PILOT" -- Jep Epstein. On composer Johnathan Wolff's website, he mentions how he was asked to do a new score after the original music wasn't working out. I asked Wolff about it and among his answer, he said that supposedly the Pilot on DVD contains Epstein's score and an explanation why. What's the deal with rejection? ;-) [Johnathan Wolff.]
TO DIE FOR -- John Addison. Addison listed this one among his scores in Who's Who in America. [Cliff Eidelman.]
TRUST ME -- Elmer Bernstein, R.I.P. Retained at least on a what was described to me as a "Sell-through" video. Don't know if it was retained in any other country, or which country at all. Interview where Dan Woll talks about it. USC contains at least the paper work. At one point Frédéric Talgorn, who was doing original trailer music for the film, was talked to about rescoring the film after Bernstein's rejection. [Gary Brown, James Woody, Dan Wool - as the group "Pray For Rain"]
1990
MURDER IN MISSISSIPPI (TV movie) -- Elmer Bernstein, R.I.P.. One cue was retained in the scenes where the black men stand to be counted for who's willing to fight. INFO. [Mason Daring; Elmer Bernstein (one leftover cue).]
MOBSTERS -- Stewart Copeland. Copeland included 3:23 of his score on his promo CD, From Rumble Fish to Gridlock'd. [Michael Small, R.I.P.]
QUICK CHANGE -- Randy Edelman. Parts of his score were rejected and Howard Shore stepped in. [Randy Edelman; Howard Shore (additional).]
STELLA -- John Barry. In an interview Barry says he had finished composing the score and the "powers that be" decided the film should be a comedy instead of drama and asked him to redo the main theme (which, to me, implies the score was recorded), Barry refused, and walked off the picture, which was not too big a deal as he says the very next film he was offered was "Dances With Wolves". [John Morris.]
TREMORS -- Ernest Troost. Robert Folk came in to save the day and rescore an estimated 2/3rds of the film, and was asked to rescore the whole movie, but there wasn't enough time; ended up doing 40mins of replacement score. Some, if not all, of his rejected score appeared on an Intrada promotional CD with four cues from Bloodrush. [Robert Folk; Ernest Troost (leftovers).]
1991
BINGO -- John Morris. Perhaps, now that Morris is getting his due, the recorded score for this film will be issued on CD. [Richard Gibbs.]
BILLY BATHGATE -- John Kander. Kander's lush, old-fashioned romantic score was replaced after the film was re-cut by the studio. INFO. [Mark Isham.]
IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT: "NO OTHER ROAD" (Season 4) -- Larry Blank. Score rejected for being too "melodic". Despite his score not being used, he is still credited during the end credits. [Pre-existing score from other episodes; Nan Schwartz Mishkin (who has a website now, as of November 08!) and David Bell efforts.]
+THE INNER SANCTUM -- ?????. Cirino tells in an interview the first composer did some of his score, they hated it, and asked him for a new one, giving him only five days. [Chuck Cirino.]
THE JOSEPHENE BAKER STORY (TV movie) -- Ralph Burns. INFO. [Georges Delerue; Ralph Burns (leftovers).]
NEW JACK CITY -- Wally Badarou. Part of his score will be re-worked on his upcoming solo album. [Michel Colombier; Vassal Benford (additional).]
NIGHT ON EARTH -- Toru Takemitsu. In 2004, about four tracks from the score was released on a 14CD compilation of film/TV/and theater works by the composer, from the label Shogakukan. One book, Made in Japan: Studies in Popular Music, proposes two reasons for the rejection: one being the composer's manager suggesting the film was defeated by the good music, and the other from the composer's wife suggesting some kind of contract problem and that the score wasn't what director Jim Jarmusch expected. [Tom Waits.]
OBJECT OF BEAUTY -- Trevor Jones. The sessions reside at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, after being donated by Jones himself. INFO . [Tom Bahler, Billy Barber (additional).]
OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY -- Angelo Badalamenti. Supposedly some still left in. Orchestrations by Andy Barrett. [David Newman.]
THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS -- Graeme Revell. A 28:55 suite of Revell's score was included on the Bay Cities soundtrack CD, along with a suite of Don Peake's replacement score. Also, three un-suited cue selections appear on a film music demo that was assembled so he would score a movie called "Fallen" (Tan Dun got it, but supposedly Revell's score was rejected). The Hitchcock Media Records remastering only features Peake's score. [Don Peake.]
*THE PRINCE OF TIDES -- John Barry. Barry turned his main theme into the piece "Moviola," and included it on the album of the same name. Later he used it in his score to "Across the Sea of Time". Barry quit the film (supposedly because Streisand wanted him to move from New York to Los Angeles). INFO. [James Newton Howard.]
REGARDING HENRY -- Georges Delerue. The director had initially blamed Delerue's score and didn't even bother to ask him to fix anything, instead rejecting it all, which shocked the composer. Later on he got a letter from the director apologizing for it. Replacement composer Hans Zimmer said he wanted the soundtrack album to include both his score and Delerue's. Not surprisingly, this didn't happen. In an interview by Darren Cavanagh, Zimmer said:
"It wasn't rejected. Actually it was a beautiful score. I was trying to persuade them that for the record we should have one side with George's score, and the other side with mine. It's not like Mike Nichols doesn't love Delerue's score. It just doesn't quite work with the film. If I have to apportion blame, I think it was mostly Mike's fault."

In an interesting post at FSM, percepto.com head said he had Delerue's score. Yeah, I already tried e-mailing him. Boot. INFO. [Hans Zimmer.]
SHATTERED -- Angelo Badalamenti. Andy Berrett, orchestrations. Three cues Barrett worked on are available on an obscure promotional release, giving us a glimpse at what Badalamenti did. [Alan Silvestri; Ashley Irwin (additional).]
WHITE FANG -- Hans Zimmer. Zimmer's score was actually written to replace Basil Poledouris' score, but the studio ended up choosing between them cue by cue, and including the majority of Poledouris' work. Intrada Records released both scores on one CD (March 20, 2012), but it didn't not sell the full 3,000 copies and was discontinued ealy December, 2012. [Basil Poledouris, R.I.P., Fiachra Trench (additional), Shirley Walker, R.I.P. (additional); Hans Zimmer (leftovers).]
1992
AILEEN WUORNOS -- Christian Henson. [David Bergeaud.]
CRISSCROSS -- Michael Convertino. Jones had one week to come up with a new score. INFO. [Trevor Jones.]
GLADIATOR -- Jerry Goldsmith, R.I.P.. Previously there were two bootleg versions, one long and one shorter, only, but on February 18, 2013, Intrada Records released the score (Fiedel's replacement score was not released). The soft piano theme was re-used in a handful of cues in "The Vanishing". [Brad Fiedel.]
HONEYMOON IN VEGAS -- Marc Shaiman. INFO. [David Newman.]
INNOCENT BLOOD -- Elmer Bernstein, R.I.P.. [Ira Newborn.]
JENNIFER EIGHT -- Maurice Jarre. Orchestrations by Patrick Russ. Initially it was Young they rejected to go with a bigger name, but Jarre's score didn't work out. One cue, "Main Title" [4:19], was included on CD4 of the late 2010 Maurice Jarre box. On February 28, 2012, La La Land Records released a 2CD set with Young's score and Jarre's full rejected score. [Christopher Young.]
K2 -- Hans Zimmer. Varese released Zimmer's score [41:24] on a "Music Inspired by the Film" CD. Zimmer on the movie: "K2 was an odd thing. Someone else scored the movie, then my good friend, Franc Roddam asked me to rescore it. They ended up making lots of picture changes, so my score only made it to the European territories, and different versions went to the Japan and American territories." [Chaz Jankel.]
MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN -- ?????. In a Soundtrack.net interview, John Carpenter states that Walker was brought on board by Chevey Chase and the producer at the request of Warner Bros., because they weren't happy with the current score. Carpenter doesn't say if he did any additional score, but one can only assume. Composer Jack Nitzsche was involved, but no word on whether he was the one replaced. [Shirley Walker, R.I.P. - CD.]
ONE FALSE MOVE -- Pete Haycock & Derek Holt. Though still retaining credit on the film, and a few small pieces still in, according to composer Terry Plumeri, the director hated the duo's score and tossed most of it, but was unable to remove their names from the film for other reasons. [Paul De Franco; Terry Plumeri (additional); Pete Haycock & Derek Holt (leftovers).]
POISON IVY -- Aaron Davis. In an old interview, Frank explains he was replacing another composer's score (that in another interview he said the producers were unhappy with), and that he had two weeks to write and record his. Davis is credited with "Additional music", though it appears to be just songs he worked on, and none of his score. Frank's score, a personal favorite of mine, is still unreleased (you can hear a cue on his site though). [David Michael Frank; Aaron Davis (leftovers?).]
THE PUBLIC EYE -- Jerry Goldsmith, R.I.P. After watching a cut of the film with Goldsmith's score, the director was sure it would ruin the film, and ultimately had it replaced. Dark noir score, darker than "Chinatown". Recorded in London. On June 14, 2021, Intrada Records released the score. INFO. [Mark Isham.]
SPLIT SECOND -- Wendy Carlos. Rediscovering Lost Scores Volume 2 features two cues: "Visit to a Morgue" 1:21, and "Return to the Morgue" 2:45. [Francis Haines & Stephen W. Parsons.]
*A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT -- Elmer Bernstein, R.I.P. A member of either FSM, or moviemusic attended a pre-screening that contained Bernstein's score. FSM also wrote: "Bernstein later agreed that his mystical approach didn't gibe with what director Robert Redford was seeking...". Hear a whole piece HERE; from 15:44 to 16:51. INFO. [Mark Isham - CD [reissued & remastered].]
YEAR OF THE COMET -- John Barry. The trailer for the film included some of Barry's unmistakable music toward the end. Supposedly at the Barry scoring session, the film's director, Peter Yates, was heard to remark, "This is the worst film I've ever made.". FSM had a poll once on which Barry scores should be released and Barry's YOTC got: 12 votes (0.3%). INFO. [Hummie Mann.]
TRESPASS -- John Zorn & Jon Hassell. Zorn's Film Works Volume 2 has what is supposed to be all his score. INFO. [RY Cooder.]
1993
BARBARIANS AT THE GATE (TV movie) -- Trevor Jones. The score, mostly electronic with some saxophone and clarient overdubs, now resides at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, after being donated by Jones himself. INFO. [Richard Gibbs.]
DEADFALL -- David Shire & Jim Fox. Shire, handling the bulk of the scoring, came onboard as a favor (the film's director was the nephew of his former wife, Talia Shire), and together with Fox provided an evocative electronic score with haunting wordless solo female vocals. In a move which is ironic by today's standards, the higher ups wanted an orchestral score instead of electronic, and requested Shire to rescore the film. Shire declined, having other projects on the table, and beleiving he had provided a perfectly adequate score. On a tight budget and schedule, Fox did a new score with real musicians, using a small chamber orchestra. [Jim Fox.]
HEARTS AND SOULS -- Maurice Jarre, R.I.P.. INFO (pending). [Marc Shaiman.]
HOMEWARD BOUND: THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY -- David Shire. HERE is a 1999 Interview FSM did. INFO. [Bruce Broughton.]
JERSEY GIRL -- Christopher Young. One cue [15:58] titled: "Sparkle Road" on the 2CD promo set: Cinema Septet. INFO. [Steven Bedell, Misha Segal.]
JUDGMENT NIGHT -- Alan Silvestri. In response to a fan question at the Intrada Records message board -- the folks who released Silvestri's score (sold out) -- about the un-used electronic score bits, the reply was that Silvestri infact did an entire electronic score which was rejected; only three cues [9:52] were included on the CD with Silvestri's final score. [Alan Silvestri.]
MR. JONES -- Mike Figgs. Figgs said in an interview he did this film, which he thought was okay and also had a "stunning" performance by Gere, but then, as he says, it got "butchered"; someone came in, reshoots after reshoots were done, cutting, and Figgs' score was tossed (and Nitzsche hired). Figgs comments it went on for over two years, and that he stole a copy of the film as he did it, and also has not -- at the time of the interview (pre 2003) -- seen the final version of the film. [Jack Nitsche, R.I.P..]
MR. JONES -- Jack Nitzsche, R.I.P.. Rescored after Figgs was axed. [Maurice Jarre.]
MR. WONDERFUL -- Maurice Jarre. INFO (pending). [Michael Gore.]
POINT OF NO RETURN -- Gary Chang. On top of doing a score (full demo, and some of it recorded), Chang even re-wrote some cues when requested. INFO. [Hans Zimmer; Nick Glennie-Smith, (additional).]
SHADOWLANDS -- Christopher Gunning. At least three cues recorded with a small ensemble and vocalists, including what sounds like a boy soprano. [George Fenton.]
SNIPER -- Gary Chang. Most of his score was rejected and replaced by Zimmer and Mancina. INFO. [Gary Chang (leftovers), Hans Zimmer (additional), Mark Mancina (additional).]
THREE OF HEARTS -- Richard Gibbs. After rejecting Gibb's score, the producers gave him another shot, so he did a second score, which was also rejected. European prints still carry his score (which one, is unknown). Jackson states on his website he had two weeks to write and record his replacement score. [Joe Jackson.]
on CD. [Björn Isfält and Alan Parker.]
THE YOUNG INDIANA JONES CHRONICLES: "PARIS, SEPTEMBER 1908" -- Frederic Talgorn. Talgorn recanted in an interview (by Yann Merluzeau) that McNeely had spotted the episode, but due to time constraints he and Rosenthal couldn't score three of the series' episodes; amongst them was this one, so Talgorn set about and did a score based on McNeely's spotting notes, saying about the events, "... which is a thing that I will never do again, because they is very dangerous. The proof is that the result was not what they wanted.". In the end McNeely had to fit it in after the rejection. In 2023, Talgon uploaded a suite of score from this rejected score on his official Youtube channel. [Joel McNeely.]
1994
A GOOD MAN IN AFRICA -- Mario Lavista. When I asked him about his "additional music" credit at IMDb.com, his answer was his score was rejected, some just still happens to be in the film. Said Lavista, the director and producer couldn't agree on the score, so they sought a new one; Lavista had flown to American, seen the film, flew back home and recorded his score in a church and flew back six weeks later with it. If Georges Delerue hadn't passed away, he would have gotten the film. [John Du Prez; Mario Lavista (leftovers).]
I LOVE TROUBLE -- Elmer Bernstein, R.I.P.. Bernstein is rumored to have told director Charles Shyer, "I'm too old and too rich to give a shit." However, this is a variation of a story told about William Goldman and Chevy Chase about the writing of Memoirs of an Invisible Man, so it may be apocryphal. Newman had nine days from the spotting session to the recording. Bernstein wasn't even the first composer asked, as Alan Silvestri was sought, but as he was too busy he had to turn it down; after Bernstein's score was rejected Silvestri was asked again, but again was too busy, though in the end both he and Newman spotted the film (but I don't know if Silvestri recorded anything). [David Newman; Chris Boardman (few cues on his site), William Kidd, Mark McKenzie, and Peter Tomashek (all additional).]
*INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE -- George Fenton. A promo with a bit over 26:39 minutes of his score is available. Just concert suites though. The producer's thought his score was way too slow and as moviemusic.com member "Hard Target" said: "Ironically it was reused and orchestrated for Mary Reilly". And some of his score was still retained, like a ballroom scene. INFO. [Elliot Goldenthal, Robert Elhai (additional).]
COP TIPS WAITRESS $2 MILLION (AKA: It Could Happen To You) -- ?????. For what ever reason, the first composer's score was dumped and Burwell had about three weeks to do his score which was about 40mins total. The rumor is John Barry was first. The film's new name is rather apt, wouldn't you say? [Carter Burwell.]
+IL POSTINO -- ?????. After some kind of disagreement/argument with the orchestra, the un-named composer walked off the recording, leaving little time for a new score. Various composers were in talks, and Morricone was asked to score it, but had to turn it down, but his suggestion for composer was ultimately used. [Luis Enríquez Bacalov .]
LITTLE BIG LEAGUE -- Hummie Mann. [Stanley Clarke; Jeff Beck, Steve Cropper, and Booker T, Jones (all additional).]
MONKEY TROUBLE -- Richard Robbins. Mancina tells in an FSM interview: "... Richard Robbins had done the score, it was extremely dark...". [Mark Mancia.]
RAMPO -- ?????. Originally the film had an electronic score, but one of the film's producer's took over and replaced it (I don't know if it was a different composer or the same composer, just an electronic score) with new score with real orchestra. [Akira Senju.]
THE RIVER WILD -- Maurice Jarre. Back before his score was tossed, the CD's for a release had already been pressed (MCA Records); I assume they were destroyed. One cue, "The Vacation Begins" [9:13], was included on CD4 of the late 2010 Maurice Jarre box; the set also included a cue titled "After Tomorrow" [3:22] from an un-named rejected score by him -- I put it here since I don't know the film's name. The three and-a-half weeks rush to do a new score was too much and as a result, the next film Jerry was to score -- which needed to be done quickly, too -- "The Jungle Book", was dropped. According to one score fan who met the composer for a magazine interview, Universal head Sidney Sheinberg rejected the score after test audience reviews praised the score but thought the movie was boring, so the film was edited to be more action oriented and Goldsmith hired; evidently Sidney Sheinberg was also responsible for replacing Jerry's score to "Legend". On January 21, 2015, Intrada Records released a 2CD set of the complete Goldsmith score and rejected Jarre score. INFO. [Jerry Goldsmith, R.I.P..]
SIRENS -- Geoffrey Burgon, R.I.P.. INFO. [Rachel Portman.]
SONIC THE HEDGHOG 3 -- Michael Jackson. Was hired to do the game, but the child molestations news broke. In a January, 2016 article on a left-wing news site I won't even give the time of day to name, more details were given about what happened; summed up: Jackson did a score which sounded like typical Jackson songs, but Jackson didn't like how it sounded in the game because of the mix and wanted his name taken off it.. The charges made the news and his music was removed and the deal terminated. According to Howard Drossin in two different interviews, he's falsely credited as the composer for the film, that what he did was write some music which was handed off to the Japanese composers and that he wasn't sure "what if anything" he wrote made it in there. He also stated in an audio interview, he was told he'd be working with Jackson, then shortly after that the news broke and then he was told he wouldn't be working with Jackson, and doesn't really know what happened after that. [Bobby Brooks, Brad Buxer, Geoff Grace, Doug Grigsby III, Cirocco Jones (as Scirocco), Darryl Ross; Howard Drossin (musical director; falsely credited as the composer online at websites); Michael Jackson (leftovers).]
SPEED -- Jerry Goldsmith, R.I.P.. INFO (empty for now). [Mark Mancinia & others.]
1995
A WALK IN THE CLOUDS -- Lou Brouwer. Credited with a song in the end credits, and that song and another are on the CD (only featuring Jarre's score though). Jarre said in an interview the first composer did more of a song/score; that effort ws not included in the La La Land Records release of Jarre's complete score in 2012. [Ray Folguera.]
A WALK IN THE CLOUDS -- Ray Folguera. Maria Entraigues, vocals and assistant to composer. [Maurice Jarre.]
ASSASSINS -- Michael Kamen. INFO. [Mark Mancina, Don Harper, Jeff Rona, John Van Tongeren, & Christopher Ward (all additional) -- boot.]
DANGEROUS MINDS -- Mark Isham. The producers thought it was too "jazzy". The story was Isham had brought the two composers in to help revise his score, but this was false information passed around; Isham was flat-out being replaced. [Wendy & Lisa Coleman.]
DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE -- Michael Kamen. Said Kamen in an interview, he recorded and entire original score, but ultimately John McTiernan had nearly all of it rejected, and had Kamen redo original themes based on his own themes from the first film. [Michael Kamen; Chris Boardman (additional).]
FAIR GAME -- Michael Kamen, R.I.P. & David Sanborn. David Sanborn did songs and is listed as a co-composer in the original trailer. Kamen may not have finished recording the score, as after having problems on the film, he left it, sadly, to instead concentrate of "Assassins". [Mark Mancina; Christopher Ward, Don Harper (additional).]
FEAST OF JULY -- Rachel Portman. A little less than a dozen cues are still left in the film. Two cues on the score CD are credited to Portman. [Zbigniew Presiner; Rachel Portman (leftovers).]
+HEAT -- Michael Brook. After completing some score, Mann changed his mind. One cue was retained in the film. [Elliot Goldenthal; Michael Brook (one leftover cue).]
THE INDIAN IN THE CUPBOARD -- Miles Goodman, R.I.P.. On his Film Music Volume 3 promo CD nine minutes of his score is available. Said Goodman on his score: "I'm really excited about it--It'll be a big symphonic score with motifs from Native American music," said Goodman. He continued to express his excitement, mentioning the "little Indian flute" he planned to write the main theme on. Frank Oz wasn't happy the score was removed. Supposedly Goodman only recorded about 20 minutes of score; I cannot say if that was because he was stopped before completion, or if he simply did a short score. INFO. [Randy Edleman.]
JANE DOE (AKA: PICTURES OF JANE DOE) -- ?????. As happens from time-to-time, a picture is pushed back a few years, and for what ever reason, rescored. [Bill Wandel.]
JOHNNY MNEMONIC -- Group: Black Rain. Before Danna (see "UN-USED"), the director asked them to score the film, but ended up not liking the score, but an alternate source -- an interview with one of the members (Stuart Argabright) said the financers wanted star power and got a star and decided the Black Rain score had to go. In the Japanese version of the film which contains Danna's score (see UN-USED section), a few cues from Black Rain are still retained. This CD supposedly contains most, if not all the score they did. [Mychael Danna, then Brad Fiedel.]
THE SCARLET LETTER -- Elmer Bernstein, R.I.P.. Bernstein is rumored to have written star Demi Moore a letter, thanking her for throwing out his score so he could reuse the music on a better film after this one was panned; an excerpt of which I am told goes like this: "when I saw the reviews for the film I'm so glad you didn't use my music.....". On Bernstein's site, there is a poll asking which score you would be willing to pay 20 dollars for. Of the options, there is only one rejected score listed and it's Scarlet Letter -- which, on June 11, 2008 -- was released in limited edition with two other rejected scores. Poll HERE. Geoff Foster, Chief Sound engineer on the rejected score. Said the director on Bernstein's score, "musically accomplished ... what you'd expect from a man with enormous talent.". Barry said in an itnerview years ago that he actually had lunch with Bernstein in London while he was doing the score, and had no idea why it was replaced, being asked if five weeks was enough time to do a new score. INFO. [John Barry - CD.]
SILVER STRAND -- Bruce Rowland. [Joseph Conlan.]
STRANGE DAYS -- Michael Kamen, R.I.P.. Thanks to a reader who spotted an interview with Kamen in an old magazine where he said it was recorded and that he was moving on to "Die Hard 3" (also mentioned two scores he didn't do). [Deep Forest.]
STRANGE DAYS -- Eric Mouquet & Michel Sanchez (as Deep Forest). The Duo were originally scoring the film alone, but something happened. Still credited in the film for "Additional music". [Graeme Revell, Peter Gabriel (?); Deep Forest (leftovers).]
TWO BITS -- Maurice Jarre. Notorious score rejector and studio head Harvey Weinstein, once again steps in and decides to rejected a score. The director tells in a later interview he was not happy with that and was pleased with Jarre's score, but liked what he heard from Burwell and ultimately thought Burwell's score was better. . In late 2012, Tadlow released a re-recording of various Jarre works, and included a track titled "End Credits" from this rejected score (see tracklist HERE). INFO. [Carter Burwell.]
WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE -- ?????. The director said the score did not work at all. [Jill Wisoff.]
+THE WEST SIDE WALTZ (TV movie) -- Leonard Rosenman, R.I.P.. INFO. [Patrick Williams.]
WILD SIDE -- Jon Hassell. The late Jack Nitzsche recalled an extremely disturbing story that the studio hated Hassell's score, and when the director, Donald Cammell, stood up for it, they fired him. Later that after noon he was found dead from a gunshot to the head by his own hands -- apparently not dying straight away and living for 40 minutes that way. INFO. [Ryuichi Sakamoto.]
1996
BOX OF MOON LIGHT -- Devlin Z. When the director recants about the previous score, "The music came in sounding like it was written after a bad heroin fix.", you know things were not going so well. The director tells on his blog that he hired the composer instead of his normal collaborator, and found just a couple weeks in the music was too dark and sour; $80,000 & weeks later, he realized the score had to go, so replacing it ended up shutting down production and bringing in his regular composer for less pay and little time (the pay coming out the director's own pocket). [Jim Farmer.]
CARPOOL -- Bill Conti. You can watch a trailer on YouTube where he is still credited; no idea if any of the music in it is by him. INFO. [John Debney; John Beal (additional [not for either composer]).]
GATTACA -- Danny Elfman. INFO. [Michael Nyman.]
THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU -- Zbigniew Preisner. Preisner recorded an unknown amount of score that was very interesting, but ultimately scared the director. Preisner wasn't the first choice either, replacing Wojciech Kilar; details on what Kilar did or did not do, are not known (like being on "The Truman Show" first). INFO (pending). [Gary Chang; Richard Whitfiled (additional).]
LAST MAN STANDING -- Elmer Bernstein, R.I.P. Available from Varese Sarabande [VSD-5755 CD]. I think the title is Out Of Print though. New Line music department was happy with Bernstein's score, ironically. INFO. [Ry Cooder - CD.]
MARIETTE IN ECSTASY -- Leonard Rosenman, R.I.P.. The director, who had moved on, was abscent from screening where Rosenman's score was dubbed in, and the producer didn't like it, rejecting it. Rosenman also replaced George Fenton (click to read more). INFO. [Christopher Klatman.]
MARVIN'S ROOM -- Thomas Newman. INFO. [Rachel Portman.]
+MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE -- Alan Silvestri. For unspecified reasons, one CD label head stated in 2016 that the chances of the score being released is very unlikely. Boot. INFO+v. [Danny Elfman.]
THE PEREZ FAMILY -- Zbigniew Preisner. Geoff Foster, Chief Sound engineer on the rejected score. [Alan Silvestri.]
PICTURE BRIDE -- Cliff Eidelman. A CD with some of his score was released by Varese Sarabande. Not sure if it was a promo ot not. [Mark Adler.]
RANSOM -- Howard Shore. Apparently Mel Gibson didn't like Shore's score, and Ron Howard suggested the man he'd worked with before. Two different boots exists. One slightly longer than the other. INFO. [James Horner.]
RUN FOR THE DREAM: THE GAIL DEVERS STORY (Limited shown TV special) -- ?????. See "Love Songs - 1999". [Ronnie Laws & Pete Anthony.]
SOUL OF THE GAME (TV Movie) -- Terence Blanchard. Blandchard told in an interview with Wynton Marsalis about the film after bringing up Marsalis' two rejected scores, that he had a small budget to do the score but the director loved his score anyway, but the studio felt otherwise and came in, got Holdridge and asked him what was needed to do the job. Blanchard is credited with "Special Music and Selected Performances by" in the end credits, which fits with him saying not all of it was rejected. [Lee Holdridge; Terence Blanchard (leftovers).]
SPITFIRE GRILL -- Bennie Wallace. The score had originally been used at the Sundance Film Festival, but when it was decided to bring the movie to a national audience, the studio decided to have it rescored, despite the director loving the score. No better why to start a career off then to be replaced by a big shot at a studio's behest. [James Horner.]
2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY -- Jerry Goldsmith, R.I.P.. Goldsmith reused a theme from the score as "Willa's Theme" in "Fierce Creatures". The flim's director previously threw out Conti's "Two of a Kind" score, and later had "15 Minutes" half-rescored. On June 12, 2012, Intrada Records released Goldsmith's score, making the prevous old bootleg somewhat irrelevent (as Intrada eventually discontinued their release). INFO. [Anthony Marinelli - One cue on a promo: "Helga".]
+WHITE SQUALL -- Maurice Jarre. Jarre sued director Ridley Scott over the replacement of his score, claiming that Scott refused to pay him his full fee (of $450,000). Jarre copied the temp track so closey (unknown whether he was asked or did so of his own will), that the director was not very pleased at all. The rumor Vangelis may have done a score was spawned by his album "Oceanic", which had nothing to do with the film, and he did not do a score for it either. INFO. [Jeff Rona.]
THE WINNER -- Group: Pray for Rain. The Japanesse version still has their score intact. What I found in an internet search claimed that the producers edited the film so badly that Cox disowned it, and they also got rid of his score. The film seems to have two different years; probably held back some before it got released. Interview where Dan Woll talks about it. [Daniel Licht.]
1997
+AIR FORCE ONE -- Randy Newman. .Several boots of his score are available. Only about half his score was recorded. While Goldsmith took the patriotic approach, Newman's theme sounds almost exactly like the theme from "The Brave Little Toaster" song: City of Lights. INFO. [Jerry Goldsmith, R.I.P.; Joel McNeely (additional).]
BELOW UTOPIA -- Ice-T (Tracy Marrow). Yes, that rapper guy. It's on CD too -- officially on CD. I listened to a few samples at this link and it's synths with an '80's feel. [Joseph Williams (son of John Williams, and member of the band Toto).]
BREAKDOWN -- Basil Poledouris, R.I.P.. [Basil Poledouris, R.I.P..]
BREAKDOWN -- Basil Poledouris, R.I.P.. For all intents and purposes, Basil essentially wrote two scores which were rejected, though technically only just one, with the "second" being so many alternate and rescored cues it equaled a second score; previously all three scores were available only on bootlegs, but on June 7, 2011, La La Land Records released all of the scoring. [Basil Poledouris, R.I.P.; Richard Marvin (additional), Eric Colvin (additional).]
BREAST MEN -- ?????. McCarthy commented in and interview he started at the night of one day writing it, then recording the next day -- less than 24 hours, saying that it's the kind of job where you are walking into wallls afterwards. [Dennis McCarthy.]
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: "WHEN SHE WAS BAD" (Season 2 premiere) -- Walter Murphy. Joss wasn't happy with the show's scoring and gave Murphy another chance, but didn't like the effort. Also of an interesting note, Whedon hired a composer to do an instrumental theme for the series but didn't like it; Hannigan (who played Willow) suggested Nerf Herder -- no word on who the original composer was, though I assume Murphy was the guy. [Christophe Beck.]
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF GARCIA LORCA -- Angel 'Cucco' Pena. In an interview (which I couldn't relocate) on the replacement composer's site, the mention is made of replacing the previous composer who was a friend of director. McKenzie also went on to state in a January 5, 2012 interview with Variety (Iian Blair) that there was no money for a new score and that they still managed to find it; and when he was sent a copy of the finished film to score, it had the previous composer's score in it, so he had to turn it down and raise the volume as needed to hear dialogue (he says they did not have a copy without the score), and did the new score, along with the orchestrations, in six weeks. [Mark McKenzie - CD.]
DRIVE -- David C. Williams. The film encountered problems from the studio, and was re-cut and re-cut, and eventually they wanted the score replaced. The director lamented in a book how he prefered Williams' score. You can hear one long cue on his website; supposedly his score is re-instated in the "Director's Cut" DVD. [Walter Werzowa.]
+FACE/OFF -- Mark Isham. Isham had finished almost 2/3 of his electronica-style score when he was fired by director John Woo (though an alternate source says about 20 minutes). About Powell's score Isham doesn't say much except that "it is quite different from what I had done." INFO (coming soon). [John Powell, Gavin Greenway (additional), Geoff Zanelli (additional).]
FIERCE CREATURES -- John Du Prez (or DuPrez?). Ronan Browne worked on the theme with DuPrez. [Jerry Goldsmith.]
THE GAMBLER -- Gerard Schurmann. Selections from both scores were released on CD. I had accidently stumbled upon an interview where the composer stated the one before was rejected because the studio thought his score wouldn't work overseas. [Brian Lock; Gerard Schurmann (leftovers?).]
THE HOUSE OF YES -- Jeffrey Taylor. In his book, The Reel World, I am told he mentions a composer before him did a score that was tossed. [Jeff Rona.]
THE HOUSE OF YES -- Jeff Rona. I am told there are about eight pages in his book, The Reel World, on it. HERE are some clips on his site. [Rolfe Kent; Marc Shapiro, Mike Williams (additional).]
IN THE GLOAMING (TV movie) -- Richard Robbins. [Dave Grusin.]
KISS THE GIRLS -- Carter Burwell. Burwell put up clips up at his site: LINK. On October 9, 2015 Quartet Records released a 3CD set of the replacement score and Burwell's full rejected score. [Mark Isham.]
MAD CITY -- Thomas Newman. Mr. Newman was the first composer on the picture. The director, who wanted Philippe Sarde at first, wasn't satisfied with some of Mr. Newman's score and hired Philippe Sarde to rescore some sections. Mr. Newman retains front-titles credit; the Varese Sarabande album features his music alone. Bill Bernstein was a music editor on Newman's score. [Thomas Newman; Philippe Sarde (additional).]
NIGHT FALLS ON MANHATTAN -- Wynton Marsalis. Columbia Records was going to release it (if I recall correctly). Not a good year for the guy. INFO. [Mark Isham.]
ROSEWOOD -- Wynton Marsalis. Marsalis later included 60:03 of his score on a CD called "Reeltime". INFO. [John Williams; Wynton Marsalis (some source music left).]
THE SIXTH MAN -- Randy Edelman. INFO. [Marcus Miller.]
SNOWDEN ON ICE -- Joseph Vitarelli & Jorge del Barrio. INFO (more info pending). [Randy Goodrum.]
STARGATE: SG1 -- "CHILDREN OF THE GODS" (the pilot) -- Ken Harrison. Originally hired to score episodes of the series, after doing two or three episodes scores with synth orchestra -- due to a limited budget -- disagreements between Mr. Harrison and a producer over music that supposedly strayed too much from David Arnold's film score, Mr. Harrison parted ways with the fledging series. The troubles for the pilot didn't end there as with no budget and being too stuck on Arnold' score, the pilot film was simply tracked with Arnold's score from the Emmerich film, in stark contrast to the episodes scores which were almost exclusively small synth-sounding efforts for a number of episodes. Some time later, the pilot film was re-cut (seven minutes removed, including some nudity), some scenes re-shot and re-dubbed, and the series regular composer -- Joel Goldsmith -- was hired to do an original score, this time with an orchestra. Dennis McCarthy -- known as one of the fastest writers in Hollywood -- scored the second episode and Kevin Kiner did the next. To this date none of the work Mr. Harrison has done for the series, has seen the light of day; hopefully one day when some label does a volume of scoring from the show, this will be rectified. At least one track (titled Operation Stargate) can be found on an obscure promo titled The Best of Ken Harrison; a sample of that cue can be heard over at Soundtrack.net. [David Arnold (first cut of the pilot; track job); Joel Goldsmith (final cut of the pilot; original music).]
THE WINGS OF THE DOVE -- Gabriel Yared. Wings of a Dove has been used as temp music by Miramax for a number of films since it was rejected. A couple cues may have actually appeared in Chocolat, which otherwise featured a score by Rachel Portman. (John Altman may have scored with Yared). Shearmur was actually the first composer on, but he was replaced by Yared, then brought back on. [Edward Shearmur.]
1998
A COOL, DRY PLACE -- Mike Mills (of REM). An old article on a Canadian website reported that the film, shot in Canada, has production staff in Canada working on it, but reportedly actor Vince Vaughn was not happy with the but of the film and a number of people were dropped and Vaughn made his own edit. [Curt Sobel.]
THE AVENGERS -- Michael Kamen (with Marius De-Vries). Kamen said about the score, quote: "Buckets. Buckets and buckets and buckets, and I'll probably use it all at some point. It was good music, interesting, funny. God knows, I don't think there'll be an Avengers 2. (laughs) There was barely an Avengers 1!". INFO. [Joel MyNeely.]
BELOVED -- Rachel Portman. In a March 9, 2018 audio interview on the BBC website (conducted by Donald Macleod), Portman said she did two scores for the film, explaining: "I originally wrote a whole score and we recorded it, with one theme, and there was just like two or four bars of what became the main theme of one little piece of music that we recorded, and the director said: Rachel, we need to rescore this film; we need to, it needs more music; it needs another theme.". [Rachel Portman.]
BRAM STOKER'S SHADOWBUILDER -- Guy Zerafa . According to the replacement composer, Zerafa wrote an entirely electronic score. [Eckart Seeber.]
+DANGEROUS BEAUTY -- Rachel Portman. Though some of her score was retained and as a result she is listed as "Additional Score By" in the end Credits. Portman had to stop writing the score half-way through, because it was either that or give birth at the sound stage. The film had many name changes and two previous names were: "A Life of Her Own" and "The Honest Courtesan". INFO. [George Fenton; Rachel Portman (leftovers).]
DENIAL -- Michael Bland & Rick Ziegler. The director rejected the score after it was finished, but ... didn't actually listen to it. INFO. [Tyler Bates, Billy White Acre (additional).]
DOG PARK -- Christophe Beck. INFO (pending). [Craig Northey.]
GODS AND MONSTERS -- Michael Convertino. In an interview excerpt HERE, the director discuses what happened to the score. He didn't give the first name, but gave a last name of "Burnett"; upon further research, this turned out to be false. The film temp was mainly from his score to "Mother Night", with some other stuff by Thomas Newman and Arvo Part. [Carter Burwell.]
GOODBYE, LOVER -- John Barry. FSM had a poll once on which Barry scores should be released and Barry's score got: 11 votes (0.2%). In mid 2016 Richard Kraft, who represented Barry later in his career, posted on his Facebook page a long post remembering Barry and during that he said Barry had clashed with the director and being removed from the picture. [John Ottman.]
GOODNIGHT, JOSEPH PARKER -- Hummie Mann. Originally a film from 1998, the movie -- for whatever reason -- was shelved for years and finally, in 2004, when it came out, it did not retain Mr. Mann's score (Mr. Mann -- how cool a name is that?), and Mann even removed it from his site -- except an old page which he clearly missed. Mann has a suite from the score up on his site. [Toledo Diamond.]
HALLOWEEN H20 -- John Ottman. Most of Ottman's score was rejected after a poor preview dub and what was used was so badly chopped up and edited (sometimes with music from other composers) that's it's a butcher job worse than anything the characters befall in the film; Beltrami did about seven minutes of original score and the rest was tracked from other films he scored -- the story and details of what is left in, is highly convoluted. You can read more about it HERE. Interestingly enough, FSM also had this in their Upcoming Scores list as being for Christopher Young as well. Ottman stated once in 1999 the score was deemed "too thoughtful" by Dimension Films executives. [Marco Beltrami (some original scoring/some score tracked from films like "Mimic", "Scream", "Scream 2", and others); John Ottman (some butchered leftovers).]
HEAD ON -- Philips Brophy. One cue on this CD, and another CD I have listed, has multiple cues -- if not the whole score (paired with another Brophy score). [Ollie Olsen.]
KINDERSTRANSPORT -- Michael Kamen, R.I.P.. INFO (pending). [Lee Holdridge.]
LES MISERABLES -- Gabriel Yared. INFO. [Basil Poledouris, R.I.P..]
THE LONG WAY HOME -- Doug Wieselman. The CD Dimly Lit: Collected Soundtracks 1996-2002, contains eleven tracks from his score. [Lee Holdridge.]
THE MINION -- Jean Corriveau. [David & Eric Wurst.]
OUT OF SIGHT -- Cliff Martinez. Studio decision. INFO. [David Holmes - CD.]
+LOST IN SPACE -- Mark Isham. After consideration of David Arnold, Jerry Goldsmith, Isham came in and did almost a full score in demo form, which I believe was done with a real orchestra. INFO (pending). [Bruce Broughton; Velton Ray Bunch (additional).]
ONE TOUGH COP -- Roger Bellon. An unknown amount of his score is still retained, but the score was not included when Intrada released Broughton's score on CD. [Bruce Broughton; Roger Bellon (leftoevers).]
PLAYING BY HEART -- John Barry. According to FSM member, jamesluckard:
"A great deal of Playing By Heart was rejected as well and rescored at the last minute by Christopher Young.

Luckily, Barry's score album, which mixes in period jazz pieces that inspired the screenwriter/director, features the whole thing.

In addition, there are two concert suites of Barry's score on the soundtrack, which were recorded before the score because of the soundtrack's earlier deadline..."

[John Barry, Christopher Young.]
PRACTICAL MAGIC -- Michael Nyman. The first pressings of the Practical Magic CD included two Nyman cues, totaling 11:44. Later pressings featured two cues from Silvestri's replacement score instead. Nyman also included one of the cues on his recent "The Very Best of Michael Nyman" CD. There is also a boot of Nyman's score, which also has the two cues from the official CD at the end. Silvestri told in a November, 2016 video interview with Film Music Media that his replacement score was the most dramatic short-time late-game score he had done and that he told his wife that if he took the gig, he'd have to lock himself away in a room and write the score quickly and she wouldn't see him until it was completed, and that the rush was so fast that basically he was free to do as he wished (no mock ups, no studio notes), because after music was recorded, it was being dubbed and prints were being made; and because of the freedom, even though it was so intensive, he loved it and that he was as proud of his score as he is anything else he has ever done. INFO. [Alan Silvestri.]
+PRIMARY COLORS -- Carly Simon. Yeah, that singer/songwriter. Apparently (though unverifed), some of her score is still in the film. While looking it up on Google, I found this: "...Carly Simon apparently refused to score Primary Colors unless scenes of the Hilary character cavorting around were cut..." and they were not, even though score had been done and was going to be released on CD soon. She left, according to carlysimon.net, on March 1, 1998. [RY Cooder, Joachim Cooder (additional).]
ROUNDERS -- Christopher Young. Replaced nearly every last bit of his original score, as told HERE. [Christopher Young.]
THE SHADOW (AKA: SKYGGEN) -- Soren Hyldgaard. In an old 1998 Movie Score update by Mikael Carlsson, he wrote that Hyldgaard's score for the "Danish BLADE RUNNER-inspired cyber-techno thriller, has been dropped in favour of atmospheric techno/dance rhythms produced by a group of 9-10 musicians. Hyldgaard was composing a moody, transient, electronic score for the film directed by Thomas Borch Nielsen. "I am too professional to regret anything but the fact that they decided about the alternate schedule that late in the process", Soren Hyldgaard comments. "Oh, and then the fact that my few pieces of string music, performed by the players of the Czech Philharmonic, is undoubtedly the best string music I have written for anything so far". Hyldgaard's amibition is to present the SHADOW score on a future promo-CD." The promo seemingly never materialized; Carlsson went on to found the MovieScore Media CD label which, in April, 2012, release a compilation CD of scores by Hyldgaard (though none from this rejected score). [Arne Schultz and the other eight or nine guys -- assuming their score was kept.]
SLIVER -- Howard Shore. Again, another score where a lot was rejected and someone was called in. Christopher Young. Shore was also not the first composer on the film (click for first). [Christopher Young (additional), Howard Shore (leftovers).]
STEPMOM -- Patrick Doyle. Doyle was recovering from leukemia when he scored this film about a woman dying of cancer and they still threw out his music, claiming he wasn't available to make changes. Isn't that what music editors are for?. Another story goes that Williams saw an early screening of the film and used his weight to take the picture from Doyle; two months time is what I have read for the replacement. At least forty-four minutes of score was recorded (which surfaced on a bootleg). Larry Ashmore, orchestrator. INFO. [John Williams - CD.]
THEORY OF FLIGHT -- Christopher Gunning. Gunning tells in an interview in 2011 (by Stephen Eickle) it was his only fully completed score to be rejected and that he worked with the director, but one of the producers did not like his music; a meeting was called just as he was leaving but then it was postponed; not too long after he was called up by his friend Stephen Warbeck, whom told him he's been to screen a film offered and it says "Music by Christopher Gunning" in it still. INFO. [Stephen Warbeck.]
THEORY OF FLIGHT -- Stephen Warbeck. As told in the described interview above, Warbeck phoned his friend Gunning up later, telling him his score had been thrown out, too. INFO. [Rolfe Kent.]
WELCOME TO WOOP WOOP -- Stewart Copeland. I am told that his score was still in when the film was shown at Cannes. Further search shows that he and his roadie, Jeff Seitz, are given "Special thanks" in the credits. [Guy Gross.]
WHAT DREAMS MAY COME -- Ennio Morricone. A boot with 11 tracks of his score and not so great sound is around. Kamen had six days to compose the score. Following the link HERE, you can watch the film with all of the rejected score from the bootleg, restored; judge for yourself it the rejection was a wise decision. [Michael Kamen; Mark Snow (additional), Robert Elhai (additional), Alfred Shnitke (additional).]
WING COMMANDER -- Robert O. Ragland, R.I.P.. [Kevin Kiner & David Arnold; Dana Glover (additional).]
1999
THE ADVENTURES OF ELMO IN GROUCHAND -- Graeme Revell. Revell worked on it until at least February of 1999, then the film got pushed back and Debney came onboard. Now, if you ask me, it seems more likely Revell also replaced a score; who picks a known horror film composer for Elmo? [John Debney.] AFRICA -- Lee Holdridge. Released on the Lee Holdridge Collection: Volume 2 by Dragon's Domain Records on March 29, 2021. [Skhumba.]
ANYWHERE BUT HERE -- Again, Elfman had large portions rejected and not used. Elfman wanted to take his name off the movie, but didn't. Got me as to why. Just a seven minute suite on CD, nothing else. [Danny Elfman.]
B. MONKEY -- Luis Enriquez Bacalov. INFO. [Jennie Muskett - There is a "General Sampler" promo that may contain some of her score.]
BLUE STREAK -- Randy Edelman. INFO. [Edward Shearmur.]
BROKEDOWN PALACE -- Hummie Mann. Despite the little mention on imdb.com: "additional music: fight scene", the fact is that he was originally scoring it by himself -- not as an "additional" composer; FSM reports this as well. And if that isn't enough, you can go his official site and hear 12:44 of it (in suite form), titled "Director's Cut"-- I take that to mean that the director didn't reject the score, but rather the studio. Gee, this is the softest fight music ever! Was it in slow motion while they threw cotton balls at each other, and wore pink? No. It was rejected. But obviously we can take it to mean that one cue was retained (but the film has been removed from his site...). [David Newman, Hummie Mann (leftover cue).]
CRUEL INTENSIONS -- John Ottman. A CD release featuring 10 of Ottman's tracks and cues from other scores he has done, was released. Released by Varese with other music he has done and there was also a 2CD promo entitled "Miscellaneous Projects"which contained his un-used music for the film, amongst other things, to quote "Majestyx". There is also a CD titled, "Cruel Intentions: The Scores Of John Ottman". Ottman was reportedly quite upset over his replacement. [Edward Sheamur - bootleg.]
EATERS OF THE DEAD (THE 13TH WARRIOR) -- Graeme Revell. Several different boots are available. The original cut of the film if rumored to have been 3 to 4 hours long, but I am told it was actually 127 minutes. Poor Revell if he wrote that much. What's worse, the replacement director Michael Crichton took over, he didn't even bother listening to Revell's score -- he just tossed it and went with Jerry. INFO+v. [Jerry Goldsmith, R.I.P. - Several boots available +]
+EYES WIDE SHUT -- Vivian Kubrick. Kubrick's daughter did a few cues, but Stanley found them inappropriate. [Jocelyn Pook.]
IN THE WILD: "LEMURS WITH JOHN CLEESE" -- Martin Kiszko. Story HERE. [Debbie Wiseman.]
THE INSIDER -- Craig Armstrong. Geoff Foster, chief sound engineer. Armstrong was the first composer onboard when the film was called "Tobacco Project" (typing that name, by the way, on imdb.com takes you straight to "The Insider"). [Graeme Revell.]
THE INSIDER -- Graeme Revell. Some of his score retained and he received and "additional music" credit, I've read. imdb.com also shows this. The official CD features three of Revell's cues. Revell was the original composer, his name was replaced on the posters with Gerrard's name, despite Revell claiming in an interview that he did additional score. INFO. [Lisa Gerrard, David Darling, Patrick Cassidy & Peter Bourke.]
INSPECTOR GADGET -- Marc Shaiman. INFO. [John Debney.]
LIFE -- William Ross. Ross himself did some updating on his IMDb page, which included mentioning two rejected scores (see a few entries below). Having seen the film myself, there is barely any score at all to speak of; couldn't be more than three or four minutes, so I would guess the replacement composer's score was canned as well. INFO. [Wyclef Jean.]
LOVE SONGS (TV) -- ?????. According to composer Pete Anthony in an interview with soundtrack.net, I believe, he replaced a composer on this and another project (Run For The Dream 1996). Ronnie Laws is credited for both movies and only those movies, on imdb.com. [Pete Anthony & Ronnie Laws.]
MY LIFE SO FAR -- Colin Matthews. Blake tells on his site that one of the film's producers called him up and asked him to view the film; he did and notes that Colin Matthews did the score and used Beethoven; Blake felt this didn't work for the film, talked to them, and was hired to rescore. [Howard Blake.]
MICKEY BLUE EYES -- Edward Bilous. Still seen on screen playing music. Go to his official site to hear two cues. [Wolfgang Hammerschmid.]
MICKEY BLUE EYES -- Wolfgang Hammerschmid. Hammerschimid did his score at least half a year before Basil's, but the decision was made to replace most of his score; a few small pieces are retained, though. [Basil Poledouris, R.I.P., Wolfgang Hammerschmid (leftovers).]
PLANESCAPE: TORMET -- Brian Williams ("Lustmord"). "I was working on a Lustmord album when approached by Interplay to compose music for their gamer "Planescape: Torment". Quite a few elements from that album ended up being used on Planescape (they liked it and wanted to use it). Later, after a new producer decided to change musical direction and didn't use the work that I'd done, some of that music ended up being reworked back into Lustmord again and about 10 minutes of it is in "Metavoid".". Reportedly only one week for the replacement score. [Mark Morgan.]
PLAY IT TO THE BONE -- William Ross. [Alex Wurman.]
THE OMEGA CODE -- ?????. Stating in an old interview he replaced a score by a previous composer, two weeks were all he had to score the film. [Henry Manfredini; Alan Howarth.]
+THE SIXTH SENSE -- ?????. J.N.H. has said in two interviews he replaced a composer who wasn't working out.. My assumptions had been the composer Shyamalan used to use, but I later found out Patrick Doyle was reported by Air Edel at the time to be working on the score. [James Newton Howard.]
STRAIGHT SHOOTER -- Peter Spilles. The German band member of the group Project Pitchfork. Recorded in October 1998. [Ulrich Reuter.]
VIRUS -- Joel McNeely. Part of McNeely's music for VIRUS was rejected and was ask to write much more aggressive and loud music. Says McNeely, "I spent a great deal of time designing creepy synth samples with Judd Miller, a genius sound designer. We had whispers and creaks and groans that were truly creepy. Sadly, much of these tracks were rejected. I also had a choir, which I used in avant-garde fashion, but these tracks as well were mostly not used.". [Joel McNeely - boot.]
WRONGFULLY ACCUSED -- David Bergeaud. Still has some score left in the film. [Bill Conti, David Bergeaud (leftovers) - boot.]
2000
ALL THE PRETTY HORSES -- Daniel Lanois. 6:14 of Lanois' music is included on the soundtrack CD. Now, which cues are they? Here is a good little something from franz_conrad, scorereviews.com member:
"Noticed on your listing of All the Pretty Horses that you wonder which cues from Lanois survived in the final film. On the score CD, track 14 (Porque) and 15 (Waltz for Hope) are Lanois'. The former was a source cue being played by a Mexican band in one scene. The latter was used at least once in the film during the montage leading up to Matt Damon and Henry Thomas' arrest. It may have also been used a second time, but I'm not sure.

I suspect, though I have no proof, that Lanois wrote the moody 6 minute opening piece which uses themes from what was apparently a replacement score written by Stuart, Wilkison and Paxton. It seems very much in his style. This cue did not appear on the CD."

INFO. [Marty Stuart, Kirstin Wilkinson, Larry Paxton.]
BUTTERFILES/ BUTTERFLY TONGUES -- Angel Illarramendi. AKA: Una Historia Reciente JMB Ediciones JMB SP 502 - 12 tracks - 36:51. [Alejandro Amenabar.]
CHINESE COFFEE -- Howard Shore. FSM had mentioned it a couple of times or so, but I guess I never really paid attention. Kong can now have some coffee and chill. INFO. [Elmer Bernstein.]
CIVILITY -- David C. Williams. The score was completed, mixed into the film, and a premiere was done, so Williams moved on. Afterward, though, the creators of the film brought in some new producers to help "sell" the film, and one of their suggestions was that "hip-hop" type music would help "sell" the film (clearly a dumb idea, but heck -- it's Hollywood). Wiliams' score sounds a little bit Thomas Newman-ish. [Brad Segal, Nic. tenBroek.]
ECCO THE DOLPHIN: DEFENDER OF THE FUTURE (video game) -- Attila Helger. You can hear one cue from the rejected score HERE. [Attila Helger and Tim Follin.]
+G-MEN FROM HELL -- Michael Schelle. Schelle posted one cue on his Soundcloud page, a main title that "nasty, dirty, sleazy, sweaty, fat urban jungle" side of Henry Mancini that he wrote on spec for the director, who rejected it to go with an atmospheric 'new-agey' acoustic guitar score. Arghhh, Hollywood.. [Greg De Belles.]
+KINGDOM OF THE SUN (AKA: THE EMPORER'S NEW GROOVE) -- Marc Shaiman. As you know, this used to be on the "Supposedly Rejected" list, until Shaiman decided to admit to it -- not to me, but rather some other place -- HERE. Shaiman was also quoted as saying, somewhere else (forget where): "I was done with 2/5 of the score when the filmmakers decided to move in a different direction ... away from me!". INFO. The ill-fated and unreleased (aside from illegal uploads to youtube from time-to-time) documentary about the problems with the production, titled "The Sweatbox" (2002) contains footage of Shaiman at a dreaded test audience gathering where they are displeased with the music, which you can heat a few seconds of inside the film in a rare clip with his score still in tact. [John Debney, David Hartley(?).]
IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK 2 (TV movie) -- ?????. [Basil Poledouris.]
IN A HEARTBEAT: "ASSUME NOTHING" (PILOT EPISODE) -- Jon Stancer. Unsure of which pilot, and whether Stancer stayed onboard for the few episodes made. [Eckart Seeber.]
IN A HEARTBEAT: "ASSUME NOTHING" (PILOT EPISODE) -- Eckart Seeber. All this time I had been under the impression, since there was no info to the contrary at the time years ago, that Seeber's had done the replacement pilot score; compounding this was that there are a couple samples still on his out-of-date site, but someone loaded the pilot to YouTube, and the composer credited... [Fred Mollin.]
MISSION TO MARS -- Ryuichi Sakamoto. Morricone was called in after the previous score wasn't working out. Sakamoto had scored "Snake Eyes" and was asked to score "Mission: Impossible 1" (after Silvestri; see Supposedly), but not since for the director. INFO (pending). [Ennio Morricone.]
ORDINARY DECENT CRIMINAL -- David Holmes. [Damon Albarn.]
POLLOCK -- Donald Rubinstein. The promotional CD which had been for sale at his site is taken down, but Perseverance Records is now selling an official CD. INFO. [Zbiganew Preisner.]
POLLOCK -- Zbiganew Presiner. In an interview Beal, the replacement composer, said there were two scores before him. [Jeff Beal.]
SUPERNOVA -- Burkhard Von Dallwitz. A CD-R Demo promo with 9 tracks and a total time of 17:28 exists. Supposedly some of the deleted scenes on DVD feature Burkhard's score. Danna was also attached (according to an old FSM listing), and Don Davis had a CD-R sent out; no word on whether they did anything. On Jnauary 4, 2010, Intrada released both scores. [David Williams. Burkhard Dallwitz (additional).]
2001
51ST STATE -- John Murphy. Ultimately the director and the the producers couldn't see eye to eye on the music and waited until after Murphy completed his score to replace it. A demo CD-R sent around about the time of the film, contains a few tracks from Murphy's score. INFO. [Headrillaz, Darius Kedros (member of Headrillaz); Casper Kedros (additional score or member of Headrillaz?).]
BEHIND ENEMY LINES -- Paul Haslinger. INFO. [Don Davis.]
CROSSFIRE TRAIL -- David Shire. Okay, story starts like this: Ford A. Thaxton said in a post that Colvin was called in five days till, when the score was dumped at the dubstage. I contacted Mr. Colvin to see if he knew anything and he said he had more than three weeks actually. I searched to see what I could find and it turned out Brigham Young University attended/recorded(?) an unknown amount of Shire's score. They list it as: Crossfire Trail, David Shire, composer, LA East, SLC, UT, January 2000. Said the director, "an outdated approach, and dramatically over the top"; in other words, it was fantastic and the director didn't know squat. [Eric Colvin.]
THE DIVISION: "PILOT" -- Susan Marder. Back before it became defunct, the agency representing her (the Kordek Agency; now defunct) reported her as the composer and had it on her resume even after the show aired, apparently unaware of the change in composers. I assume she only completed the pilot. [Jay Gruska.]
+DOMESTIC DISTURBANCE -- Jerry Goldsmith, R.I.P.. Ultimately the score -- which is can be described as a cross between "U.S. Marshals" and Rambo percussion, with strings for tender moments -- was lost after a producer on the film was far too star-struck when John Travolta said, "what this picture needs is minimum score"; this, of course, is not what Jerry does (and it's also none of Travolta's damn business what the film's scoring needs are). Most of the score was recorded. The director had worked with Jerry twice before, and replaced a score another time by someone else. INFO (pending). [Mark Mancina, Marc & Steffan Fantini (additional), Dave Metzger (additional).]
GLAM -- Andi Toma & Jan St. Werner (as Mouse On Mars). After six weeks of working on the score, the director thought it wasn't "commercial" enough. Some tracks released on an LP that later made became a CD. [Josh Evans, Geoffrey Moore.]
THE HAPPY COUPLE -- ?????. The composer was the son of one of the companies working on the film. More info later. [Peter James Armstrong.]
JAMES DEAN (TV movie) -- Don Was. [John Frizzell.]
THE MISTS OF AVALON (TV movie) -- ?????. Holdridge -- who was the third composer on the film -- was chosen after the first score was rejected for not being "Celtic" enough, and the second (don't know if a score was done) was also ditched. [Brad Fiedel.]
+THE MISTS OF AVALON (TV movie) -- Brad Fiedel. [Lee Holdridge.]
NOVACAINE -- Beck (Hansen). Odelay! His first rejected score. INFO. [Steve Bartek, Danny Elfman (theme).]
PAVILION OF WOMEN -- ?????. In a 2001 Billboard magazine interview, Pope mentions his score was a replacement score because the director felt the one before Pope was not doing it and wanted the score to be more "western" in feel. Richard Horowitz is the only other composer I have found attached to the film before Pope, but it doesn't necessarily mean he was the composer, as the director had worked a few times with an overseas composer. [Conrap Pope.]
RAT RACE -- Elmer Bernstein, R.I.P. On May 2, 2023, La La Land Records released Bernstein's rejected score on CD (not paired with the replacement). INFO. [John Powell, James McKee Smith (additional), John Ashton Thomas (additional), Patrick Russ (additional). - CD.]
ROMANTIC MORITZ (AKA: Chasing Amy) -- Jay Asher. INFO. [Michael Whalen.]
SCARY MOVIE 2 -- George S. Clinton. A private edition with his score is around and a suite is available. Clinton recorded a little over 70 minutes of score. Even composers who were brought in had cues rejected. If someone were able to compile a CD of all those composers cues, it would be amazing. Two tracks by Manthei are available for download at his site: kmmproductions.com and two tracks from Torjussen are on a promotional CD of his. Jeff78 (Handle name) says that Beltrami was unhappy with the rush job and hence the quality of the cues he wrote and does not want to give them out. Two cues by Kevin Kliesch are on a promo CD. They are: "Catfight" and "Death of Hanson". INFO. [John Debney, Marco Beltrami, Kevin Manthei, Danny Lux (Interview), Michael McCuistion, Ceiri Torjussen, Buck Sanders, Benoit Grey, Christopher Guardino, Tom Hiel, Kevin Kliesch, James L. Venable, and Rossano Galante, Carlos Rodriguez. WHEW!!!]
+SLEEPLESS -- Goran Bregovic. A description of his score from a website says:
"Bregovic's music is mostly a mixture of ethno and modern sounds. Sometimes he repeats himself and could be a bit dull but most of the time his music is exciting and fresh. One thing is certain, Bregovic's music is nothing like that of "Goblin". His music (at least so far) is much more serene and outgoing but he can get a little bit sinister when necessary!"
The score is supposed to have not been fully recorded. [Goblin.]
+TEXAS RANGERS -- Marco Beltrami. On a promotional CD with his score to The First 20 Million Is Always the Hardest. The demos were done in his studio, but a few cues were recorded with a big orchestra and are on one of his Film Music promo CD's. Music clip. [Trevor Rabin, Don Harper (additional). - boot.]
TOMB RAIDER -- Greg Hale Jones. According to the composer's website, in November 2000 he started working on the score (with Peter Afterman). Originally he was doing source music and a little scoring, with Danny Elfman providing the opening cue, but Elfman's cue was shelved and Jones ended up doing 45 minutes of score. Jones states that the studio replaced the director and editor, and there went his score, in March 2001. [Michael Kamen, R.I.P..]
+TOMB RAIDER -- Michael Kamen, R.I.P.. According the video game composer, Nathan McCree, he was invited tp "pitch" for the score, which he said he did (I assume that means demos). Revell had ten days to do a new score, which -- coincidently, according to him, was exactly all he had open (doing another film at that time); the producers had wanted Revell from the very beginning. [Graeme Revell, Ray Colcord (additional). - CD.]
TOWN & COUNTRY -- John Altman. As pointed out (not by name) by Kent in an interview. [Rolfe Kent.]
WHAT'S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN? -- Marc Shaiman. No kind of CD for either composer. Additional orchestrations by Larry Blank. Go to Shaiman's official site, and hear three cues from his rejected score. John Rodd, orchestral scoring recordist for Shaiman's score. INFO. [Tyler Bates; Marc Shaiman (leftovers).]
ZOOLANDER -- B.T. Click HERE. INFO. [David Arnold; Randy Kerber (additional); B.T. (leftovers).]
2002
2 BIRDS WITH 1 STONE -- Ken Lampl. [Bill Conti & Ashley Irwin; Pierre André (additional, apart from them), Michael Woolmans (additional, apart from them).]
CHANGING LANES -- Dave Grusin. The cursed test audience strikes again. INFO (empty at the moment...). [David Arnold, Nicholas Dodd (additional).]
CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND -- David Holmes. INFO. [Alex Wurman, Peter Thomas (additional).]
DIRTY PRETTY THINGS -- Anne Dudley. Steve Price, main sound engineer on her score; likely recorded in London. Christian Henson, additional score. Movie might possibly still contain some of Dudley's score. [Nathan Larson - Some score on this CD.]
D-TOX (AKA: EYE SEE YOU) -- John Powell. A lot of what he originally wrote was rejected and he came up with an almost entirely new score. A promotional CD with that original score is around and a 2CD sessions as well. With help, of course. Basil Poledouris, R.I.P. was attached to the film at one point a CD of "demos" surfaced; it's nothing but selected cues from previously scored movies. The basilpoledouris.com link doesn't work anymore and directs to a link that gives you a bunch of pop ups and tries to change you homepage settings -- don't go there. [John Powell, William Ross (additional/possibly leftovers), James McKee Smith (additional), Geoff Zanelli (additional).]
DYSPHORIA: AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY -- Oliver Tuthill, Jr.. Tuthill -- the director of the still unreleased documentary film -- has composed the score to, it seems, all his films (in spite of stating he was in talks with Richard Band to do his latest, but Tuthill did anyway). Tuthill used musicians from a school band to perform on the score. The parent of one of the players got a little too proud of her child's accomplishment and caused some termoil, which pilled on top of non of the musicians being signed; the studio insisted on a new score. [David Jaedyn Conley.]
THE GATHERING STORM (TV movie) -- Trevor Jones. [Howard Goodall.]
HELLRAISER: HELLSEEKER (6th film) -- Raz Mesinai. Read that he did, so I contacted him from his site, and he said he did. Also read that about five minutes of his score was left in the movie. This CD features re-workings of his score. Some details HERE. [Stephen Edwards.]
THE INSIDE STORY -- Bruce Rowland. When being mixed into the film, the director just didn't like it. Oddly enough, this is Clarke's only known score. [Robert Clarke.]
JOYRIDERS -- ?????. Lindes states in an interview he was originally hired to replace five cues of previous composer's score that wasn't working out, but then they asked him to replace all of it, and rushed to score his first film in ten days. IMDb also lists a composer named Tony Britten -- perhaps he was the original composer. [Hal Lindes.]
MONK: "Pilot" (2 hour. TV SERIES) -- ?????. Beal states HERE he replaced someone else's score. I e-mailed Beal via his website and asked if he knew who. He would not say. I respect his opinion, really, but I don't agree with it :-). Anyway, he told me about something he said he had posted on a few other boards about being fired from Monk and Patrick Williams being brought on board for the beginning of season 2. Then Beal won an award and the producers wanted him back and they let go of Williams, instead using previous cues by Beal. Maybe Williams was the one who did the Pilot, also. Just guessing. A little known television composer by the name of Frankie Blue has a promotional CD with a "rejected" theme to "Monk" on it, leading me to believe he did the original score. [Jeff Beal.]
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE MIDLANDS -- Ted Barnes & Ali Friend. Barnes is noted for his work for Beth Orton. The CD release Underbelly contains cues from his score, some re-worked and such. [John Lunn.]
PHONE BOOTH -- Nathan Larson. Still listed as "additional" score on imdb.com (and maybe the end credits?), but his original score was rejected; as Larson states on his site, he worked on it for a year, but the studio didn't like how it worked in the film, and dumped most of his score -- he watched it, found little left, and took it off his credits on his site (at least, said he was, but it was there last time I checked). One cue on this CD. INFO. [Harry Gregson-Williams, Toby Chu (additional), and who knows who else...; Nathan Larson (leftovers)]
+ONE HOUR PHOTO -- Trent Reznor. Yeah, the "Nine Inch Nails" song-band guy. Apparently he's classically trained. The NIN CD, "Still", has two tracks which may original cues from the score: "Gone, Still" and "The Persistance of Loss" (both tracks you can hear a sample of, also there are two other instrumental tracks but no indication where they are from...). [Johnny Klimek & Reinhold Heil - CD.]
THE SHAPE OF EVIL -- Aaron Marks. Still credited on IMDb as "additional music", on Marks' site he says he did an 85 minute score that was replaced due to "unforeseen circumstances" before the premiere of the film. The film's director -- who did pretty much of everything on that film, ended up scoring it, making it his second known score. [Marc Anthony Massimei; Aaron Marks (leftovers?).]
SUEURS -- Sarry Long. A promo CD is available, but hard to find. [Pascal Lafa.]
THE NEW GUY -- Nick Glennie-Smith. Said the composer about the score when asked about it during a 2001 Soundtrack! magazine interview before the rejection, "I guess it’s aimed at 15-18 year olds, so it’s got lots of songs, not so much score. The score, really, is just to make those moments more emotional that songs cannot do." and "What I do will be orchestral, but that’s only about a third of the score. And actually some of the stuff that I do is going to be more band oriented as well.". INFO. [Ralph Sall.]
*THE HOURS -- Stephen Warbeck. INFO. [Michael Nyman.]
*THE HOURS -- Michael Nyman. Nyman's demo score was recorded with 11 musicians and then rejected, thus never making it to a full orchestra; I included it here because it was not a computer moch up. INFO. [Philip Glass - Interview by Daniel Robert Epstein also on INFO page - CD.]
ROLLERBALL -- B.T.. The composer was in the movie, but that may have been cut after rejection. [Eric Serra.]
THE TUXEDO -- Christophe Beck. The score CD features some cues from both composers that go to the same scenes. In the end, some of Beck's score was kept in the movie. [John Debney, Christophe Beck (leftovers), Douglas Romayne Stevens (additional for Beck).]
TILL HUMAN VOICES WAKE US -- Dale Cornelius. Cornelius' score was released on CD (Go to: On CD page), while Plessner's score was not. Plessner has a website in the works; may be a while. [Amotz Plessner.]
HIGHLANDER: ENDGAME -- Nick Glennie-Smith. Isolated on DVD. Originally Graziano was hired to rescore the whole movie, but in the end, like "White Fang", they picked cues from both scores. Here are some words from Graziano. [Stephen Graziano & Nick Glennie-Smith (leftovers), Todd Wollon (additional), Rob Cairns (additional), Chris Neel (additional).]
2003
AND STARRING PANCHO VILLA AS HIMSELF (TV) -- Stephen Endelman. The director stated HBO suggested Vitarelli, asking him what he thought about the music, but while he thought it was competant enough, that it was fairly bland chewing-gum-for-the-ears TV music. When he left for another project, HBO replaced Endelman's score. INFO. [Jospeh Vitarelli.]
+BAD BOYS 2 -- Mark Mancina. Even though Mancina and Rabin are friends, they were not working on the score together, but rather Rabin was called in to replace him; at first some score was to be left in, but all was dumped and Rabin took over (Rabin said he would not take the assignment unless it was just him). Mancina has since gone on to speak about, only breifly, what happened on the film, at least twice; one time on March 7, 2008 when he was a guest speaker at Emerson College, where he said of the score, "The director of that film [Michael Bay], brought in nine composers, so all he got was nine different versions of the same thing."; then again in mid 2013 with a video interview (audio only) at FilmMusicMedia.com, where he described the first film as being great but the second a "hysterical joke" and that "the stuff I wrote at the beginning of that was so cool that I've used it, I used it in a different movie, I don't want to say what movie it was, but it was great. He just, Michael Bay just can't hear music. Period.". In the end much of what Rabin wrote didn't make it into the film and was replaced by new cues from other composers along with Jablonsky re-arranging pieces Rabin had done. Mancina seems to imply he walked off the project. INFO. [Trevor Rabin; Trevor Morris, Harry Gregson-Williams, Steve Jablonsky, Toby Chu, Paul Linford, Mel Wesson, Clay Duncan (all additional); Mike Elizondo (additional for Dr. Dre), Dr. Dre (additional???).]
DICKIE ROBERTS: FORMER CHILD STAR -- Waddy Wachtel. Read more HERE, from Bluntinstrument's Final Cue sheet/DVD analysis. [Christophe Beck; Waddy Wachtel (leftovers).]
DUPLEX -- Alex Heffes. Even after completing his score, supposedly Danny DeVito's behavior was so poor that Heffes simply withdrew his score. Even after the withdrawl, Heffes was supposedly asked to provide some additional scoring after change in composers, but this may have no happened. INFO (pending). [David Newman; H. Scott Salinas (source cues).]
FISH WITHOUT A BICYCLE -- Didier Rachou. Originally the other way around, I received an e-mail from the composer informing me of my error. [Kevin Blumenfeld.]
FREAK OUT -- Aaryk Noctivagus. I e-mailed Mr. Noctivagus and he was more than helpful and even pointed out another rejected score and gave me tracklists and explanations for both! So, HERE. On his official MySpace page, you can listen to the whole "Main Title" piece. [Stuart Fox.]
FREELANCER (Video Game score; iffy entry) -- ?????. Cato was asked at the last minute by the game's director to do additional score to replace that of the other composer (how much is unknown). musicbycato.com [Cato -- First name, or last name? A promo may feature some of it.]
+GIGLI -- Carter Burwell. Score not completed. [John Powell.]
HONEY -- Wendy & Lisa Melvoin. An old Film Score Monthly listing at the time before the film opened, had Bruce Broughton listed as composer; I can only assume he was first, as stylistically the duo and Warren are in a different direction than what Broughton normally goes toward. [Mervyn Warren.]
I.D. (AKA: Identity) -- Angelo Badalamenti. With help from composer Phil Marshall. [Alan Silvestri.]
THE WEDDING PARTY (AKA: THE IN-LAWS) -- Lalo Schifrin. At some point Danny Elfman was also attached, and another review of the film, from Variety as I recall, after Schifrin's rejection, had Vivian Kubrick listed as the new composer. [Some score from Francis Lai's "Un homme et une femme", pre-existing cues by Klaus Badelt and John Powell and possibly original score from James S. Levine.]
MOST -- ?????. At the time, the "Most" website, made a short statement about Debney providing a new score. Didn't say who, even when I e-mailed them. [John Debney.]
RESISTANCE -- Tom Barman (and his band dEUS). [Angelo Badalamenti; Phil Marshall (additional).]
SHATTERED GLASS -- Johnny Klimek & Reinhold Heil. In an interview, Danna mentions replacing another score and a Google.com search only yields the composer duo as previously working on the film. [Mychael Danna.]
SHOOTOUT -- Scott Benzie. INFO. [Graham Slack.]
SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE -- Alan Silvestri. The score was fully recorded. In a September, 2017 audio interview, the director said every day she went to the sessiosn thinking maybe it would get better and that maybe it was her, but the head of the music department said the score wasn't helping her film and after a day suggested Zimmer; the new score took a week to do. INFO. [Hans Zimmer, Christopher Young (additional; click for explanation), Heitor Pereira (additional), Blake Neely (additional), Trevor Morris (additional), James S. Levine (additional), James Michael Dooley (additional), Ramin Djawadi (additional), Rolfe Kent (additional) - boot.]
SHADE -- Christopher Young. Story and CD can be found HERE NOTE: The CD is now SOLD OUT, good luck with eBay! INFO. [James Johnzen.]
TOMB RAIDER 2: CRADLE OF LIFE -- Craig Armstrong. Armstrong's score was rejected after it was recorded, doing only 45 minutes. At least one cue was retained in the movie and is often referred to as the "Lab Scene cue". INFO. [Alan Silvestri - CD.]
MOLLY GUNN (AKA: UPTOWN GIRLS) -- Lesley Barber. The producer and director didn't agree on the score and eventually Barber had to leave. [Joel McNeely.]
THE UTOPIAN SOCIETY -- Erik Godal. Shown at a festival with score in tact, Warner Bros. decided to have it rescored (one can only assume whom the guilty party is here...). [Eric Hester.]
WE DON'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE -- Thomas Newman. INFO (pending). [Lesley Barber.]
WE DON'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE -- Lesley Barber. In an FSM article, this was written:
"Normally, it's high profile, high pressure studio films which get rescored (and also Miramax/Dimension movies), but sometimes it happens to arthouse films. When Variety reviewed the infidelity drama WE DON'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE (starring Naomi Watts, Laura Dern, Mark Ruffalo and Peter Krause) early this year, critic Todd McCarthy mentioned composer Lesley Barber, "whose supple score is only marred by some obtrusive chanting in spots.". So imagine my surprise when I saw an advance screening of the film last weekend and the end title crawl included the credit "Music by Michael Convertino.". At any rate, it's nice having Mr. Convertino back scoring a film someone might actually have the chance to see.". [Michael Convertino, Lesley Barber (leftovers).]
2004
THE BIG BOUNCE -- Jimmy Rip. Did a short score which was replaced. INFO. [George S. Clinton.]
+BLADE 3: TRINITY -- Terence Blanchard. Vague rumors as to whether he did, but then I was informed via e-mail that two clips were up at a site of Terence's score and were at another site apparently as well. Also, in an interview, RZA stated he was "collaborating" on the score with Blanchard, but after Blanchard was gone, he started working with Djawadi. [Ramin Djawadi, RZA, Trevor Morris (additional).]
CATCHING KRINGLE (short film) -- Shawn K. Clement (Sean Murray, too?). Technically I wouldn't count a short film like this (15 minutes), but it was so good and Martinez's score was strong and realy fun; she will be missed. A short promotional .CD-R I got has some cues from his rejected score. [Linda Martinez, R.I.P..]
ELLA ENCHANTED -- Shaun Davey. Was credited on the posters real close to the film's opening. INFO. [Nick Glennie-Smith, James Seymour Brett (additional), Shaun Davey (leftoevers).]
EULOGY -- Richard Marvin (Q&A). In a Film Score Friday on 10/22/04 titled: DID THEY MENTION THE REJECTED SCORE BEFORE IT WAS REJECTED?, a quote from Variety writer Todd McCarthy on Marvin's score before it was rejected: "Capping everything off is an insufferably corny score.". It couldn't have been that bad. The Swedish DVD still has Marvin's name credited; whether that is a mistake, or Marvin's score is still there, I do not know (can someone check?). INFO. [George S. Clinton.]
FEAR OF CLOWNS -- Evan Evans. Story HERE. Matt Gates, additional score. [Chad Seiter and a number of unidentified others.]
FIVE CHILDREN AND IT -- Jan A.P. Kaczmarek. Cornish mentioned in an interview replacing a score, but didn't say by who. INFO. [Jane Antonia Cornish.]
HAIR SHOW (AKA: Beauty Shop) -- Kurt Farquhar. INFO (pending). [Kennard Ramsey.]
I LOVE HUCKABEES (AKA: I Heart Huckabees) -- Stephen Endelman. The director, who you can see cursing and yelling and throwing things around on the set of the film in clips on YouTube, was unusually quite during the scoring and after the score was completed, decided he didn't think it was working. INFO (more later). [Jon Brion.]
THE IDIOCY VICE -- Aaryk Noctivagus. Mr. Noctivagus was happy to share info and details. HERE Neither the movie, nor the movie's director have listings on imdb.com. See second rejection in "DEMOS" section. [Edward Lewis.]
LESS LIKE ME -- ?????. From the trivia page of imdb.com:
"The original version of the score was composed during production of the film and didn't mesh with the final cut. It was thrown out and composer Garett Grow was given three weeks to write a new score." [Garett Grow.]
LIMBO -- ?????. In an interview with the film's director, Thomas Ikimi, Ikimi stated the film already had a score by another composer, but it didn't work out, and that -- coincidently -- the previous composer was in fact the one who introduced him to the replacement composer. [Andrew David Daniels.]
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE -- Rachel Portman. In a March 9, 2018 audio interview on the BBC website (conducted by Donald Macleod), Portman said the director originally asked for an intellectualized and scary score, which she said she took to mean "Hitchcockian" and that she "wrote a whole score and we recorded it with an orchestra in London"; the director didn't come to the sessions. A couple of weeks later while going through the film with the director, Demme said the score wasn't working, so she had a short amount of time (a couple of weeks) to do a new score. [Rachel Portman.]
+MINDHUNTERS -- David Julyan. Someone posted info about this in my now dead Guestbook. The person brought up how a newspaper or magazine talked about how Julyan was fired during the first day of recording, at the sessions. Nasty. [Tuomas Kantelinen.]
THE NUT CRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING -- Yuri Kasparov. In 2021, KEep Moving Records released the rejected score on CD. [Aleksandr Vartanov and Peter Wolf.]
*THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST -- Lisa Gerrard & Patrick Cassidy. By accident I stumbled upon a post in the lisagerrard.com forum (which I hadn't been to in a while), where a "in the know", if you know what I mean, member stated that Gerrard and Cassidy had indeed done a score, but time ran out for the changes Mel wanted, and for whatever reason, he got another composer instead of doing replacement cues.. Anyway, I can't imagine why Mel would do it, if time was short, then why go for a whole new score, by a whole new composer? Anyway, I'm sure this must have been a beautiful score. One can only hope sound clips will be posted one day. Score rejected about January 28, 2004 (a few days after Debney had been hired). INFO (both composers). [Jack Lenz.]
*THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST -- Jack Lenz. Lenz was researching ethnic instruments and source music for a year or so, while also scoring the film, hoping he would be the composer, but ultimately his score was replaced (this was after Rachel Portman's unknown involvement); even then, he continued working on it. About 36 minutes of score were available for download at his old website, and the Debney CD release has him credited as "additional", but I don't know if that's because they edited in some of his score or rather the researched instrument sounds he did are included. Some of his score is retained in the film. [John Debney; Martin Tillman (additional), Gingger Shankar (additional), L. Shankar (additional); Jack Lenz (leftovers).]
PLAIN TRUTH (TV movie) -- ?????. In a 2014 mini interview with Yves (conducted by Jon Aanensen), Yves said the producers had hired a composr from Toronto but were not happy with the score. Yves said he had three weeks to do his score. [Yves Laferrière; Dylan Heming (additional).]
SECRET WINDOW -- Philip Glass. Roughly ten minutes of his score is still in the movie. Glass's Main Title, a few cues in the beginning of the movie and some in the End Credits. A 22min promo for Zanelli. And another longer version with some of Glass's score. No official score release. Though so much replaced, Glass still maintains sole composer credit at the beginning, and Zanelli in the end credits as "Additional music by". Also, only Zanelli's orchestrator (Bruce Fowler) is credited. Before the movie opened, James Newton Howard was also listed as the composer on his IMDb page. [Geoff Zanelli; Alan Elliott (additional), Phillip Glass (leftovers).]
+TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE -- Marc Shaiman. (Interview). As reported by Dan of soundtrack.net, only two songs done by Shaiman appear in the film and no score it seems. Shaiman's BLOG from the site is gone, but click on BLOG and see what he wrote. Shaiman reportedly wrote, and also said in his BLOG, a really dramatic score unlike anything he had previously done. There seems to be two different track lists for the score CD, which is supposedly all Shaiman. Here. Soundtrack.net visits a Shaiman session. INFO. [Harry Gregson-Williams, Steve Jablonsky (additional), Daimen Kaiser (additional), Stephen Barton (additional), Toby Chu (additional), James McKee Smith (additional).]
+TROY -- Gabriel Yared. (Interview with Yared) Yared spent a year putting his heart into the score only to have a "Test Audience" decide it's fate. You used to be able to hear clips on Yared's site, but as of 6-9-04: Clips gone via order of WB. Here is a petition to get it released. A 77 minute promotional CD exists -- a non-mp3 version I might add. Yared's STORY [James Horner, 3CD set???, CD.]
+WIMBLEDON -- Klaus Badelt. Badelt's resume at the agency that represents him (as of 2016), Evolution Music Partners, lists him for additional music, meaning some is left in. INFO. [Edward Shearmur; Klaus Badelt (leftovers).]
2005
11:59 -- David K. Schmal. Schmal explains on his webstie that the score was composed and recorded in 2000. Obviously this is another case of a film getting shelved and people having too much time to think about the music. At the time I wrote this entry, January 23, 2016, there were two cues from the score for sample at his website. [Joe Sego.]
AEON FLUX -- Johnny Klimek & Reinhold Heil. I don't know much, other than what I have read. Apparently the makers were happy. I can only conclude that the studio or a test audience did the score in. [Graeme Revell, David Russo (additional) - CD; expanded boot.]
AFTER INNOCENCE -- ?????. The director, whom in at least two interviews had no kind words for the rejected score, said in one:
"I had a composer before Charles whom I fired because he kept making it sound like prison clanking sounds."
Bernstein had three weeks to provide his score, with a limited budget. [Charles Bernstein.]
AN UNFINISHED LIFE -- Christopher Young. Young had been working on the project for about over a year-and-a-half (from what I know), and demoed (I believe) the whole thing. As reported by MusicFromTheMovies.com, the rejection came late in the game. As reported by the unofficial Christopher Young website (which seems to have good contact with Young), some of Young's score will still be in the movie -- but not on the Lurie CD release. Young's score was recorded in 2004. On June 26, 2006, Varese Sarabande release Young's score; if you blinked, you missed it -- it sold out that quickely. Rachel Portman may have also been attached to score it as well. INFO. [Deborah Lurie; Christopher Young (possibly leftovers).]
ANTHONY ZIMMER -- Bruno Coulais. In a 2006 interview, Coulais stated he did a score for the film with a jazz trio and considered it some of his best work, but it was not used. [Frederic Talgorn.]
ASYLUM -- Craig Armstrong. Supposedly still in tact for early screenings overseas. INFO. [Mark Mancina, Marc & Steffan Fantini (additional for Mancina).]
THE BROTHERS GRIMM -- Goran Bregovic. Seems the director, Terry Gilliam, says he did HERE (audio link). [Dario Marianelli.]
DERAILED -- RZA. Yes, "rizzuh" scored it, and I think I read somewhere that he said he was doing songs as well, but a quick check of imdb.com shows that not only is he not credited with "additional score", but no songs are listed. However, his scenes in the film acting are still there. This was a late replacement score. INFO. [Alexandre Desplat.]
DERAILED -- Alexandre Desplat. INFO. [Edward Sheamur.]
DREAMER -- Jan P. Kaczmarek. Apparently, as MFTM runner Mikel's source reports, they wanted a more typical "commercial" sound. Undoubtedly we got another "Troy" situation here. I contacted his official site, but never received a response. Dylan Maulucci, orchestrator -- who says he listens to it "all the time". INFO. [John Debney.]
FEAST OF THE GOAT -- Stephen Warbeck. INFO. [Jose Antonio Molina.]
GLORY DAYS (AKA: THE LIFE OF THE PARTY) -- George S. Clinton. Clinton mentions on an old news update on his website that the score was completed. [Mark Adler.]
HITCH -- George Fenton. The film originally had a score by Fenton, but it was temp tracked with a bunch of songs and when a test audience was shown it, it tested high, so painfully the director cut out Fenton's score. The DVD was supposed to have Fenton's rejected score restored, but the release made available early in some places, as told by member of the FSM score board, tell it to only have the first 15 minutes back in -- in the special feature -- and still with SFX. No CD release happened for the score. INFO. [Crappy songs.]
I OVERSEE THE MAINTENANCE OF A TOOLSHED -- Jesse Hopkins. HERE. Some information on what happened, HERE. [Vincent Pedulla.]
+KING KONG -- Howard Shore. No, you didn't read incorrectly. And yes, he recorded the score, about 3/4 of it, with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. The CD of Shore's score that was for pre-order, has magically changed to reflect James Newton Howard's name, so you're not getting Shore's score -- what you paid for. J.N.H.'s score is almost done recording in LA. The kingkong.net originally, before Shore's rejection, had a video on how his score was going, and a small snip of the score. Now that is gone, and there is a video of J.N.H. and a small bit of his score and the rush to make it -- with no mention of Shore. There is all kinds of news on Shore's score, but I don't feel like compiling it. INFO. [James Newton Howard, Chris P. Bacon (additional), David Long (additional ambient music), Mel Wesson (additional), Blake Neely (additional) - CD.]
MRS. HARRIS -- John Frizzell. Score completed in London. Temp track consisted of the songs: "True Love Waits", by Christopher O Riley; Radioheads piano covers and their song "No Surprises", to which Frizzell reported mimicked the instrumental parts of for his score. An old news article at the time reported Frizzell had worked with the band Nickel Creek on it. Frizzell attended the Toronto International Film Festival screening of the film before the replacement. INFO (more details coming, but stuff now). [Alex Wurman.]
NIGHT STALKER (Pilot) -- Mark Snow. [Michael Wandmacher.]
OCTOBER MOON -- Sean Lambrecht (as "Frankel"). There was talk from him a few years ago that he was going to release his rejected score on his own label, titled "The Harbor Rats", but I don't think that ever happened. He played a lead character in the film, too. [Red Clark, II.]
OCTOBER MOON -- Red Clark, II. My loose understanding is he didn't work with Lambrecht. During 2007 I had also found, via an internet search, yet another composer claiming the film: Carrol Rayne, but I can't find anything else on this person since. [Jamey Sewell; Red Clark, II (leftovers), Sean Lambrecht (leftovers).]
THE PINK PANTHER (revisioning, not a prequel or remake). David Newman. Originally, Christophe Beck was onboard, then he was rejected and then in January Newman was rejected and Beck was back onboard. Maybe Newman backed out after it wasn't working and took on Serenity. Just a guess. Newman couldn't have recorded much. [Christophe Beck.]
RODNEY (TV SERIES) -- Eric Hester. Scored the Pilot episode, but they didn't use it. And they didn't bother telling him either. [Steve Dorff.]
RUNAWAY -- Drew Stiles. Received an "additional music by" credit. [Jason Morphew.]
RUNAWAY -- Jason Morphew. Refused to share credit with another composer. While scoring it, he was told another composer, with a first or last name of Anton, was now doing the score (and might have done one) after the director had supposedly quit, but they went back to Mr. Morphew (this was his first film score). Read more of this Tale of Horror. A CD with songs and rejected score can be purchased at Morphew's site, HERE. [Robert Miller and I assume other guys/gals.]
STEALTH -- Randy Edelman. At one point he was listed as co-composer, then word spread from B.T.'s PR people that B.T. was the only composer on the project. And a member of FSM says he recorded the film in his country, off TV, and that it has them both listed. I think it's likely Edelman was the original composer, not ever a co-composer. That was probably a nice way of covering up his rejection. INFO. [Brian Wayne Transeau (B.T.) / Randy Edelman additional score in other countries(?).]
TRANSAMERICA -- Mason Daring. After doing his score, and having it rejected, he was offered a chance to do a new one, which he did, but that too was rejected. [David Mansfield.]
THE WEDDING DATE -- Debbie Wiseman. Instead of typing and rewording, here is a quote from moviemusic.com member:
BMikeJ:
"Ok, this is the scuttlebutt I was told about the composer shuffle on this project... Debbie Wiseman did indeed record a score with a large orchestra. Apparently, the producers were not pleased with the final cut of the film and decided to recut the film without the director's participation. This re-editing necessitated having a new score written for the film and that's where Blake Neely came in."

Some of her scored may still be retained. buysoundtrax.com released Neely's score. No word on Wiseman's effort, but apparently she doesn't care if it's released (shame really). INFO. [Blake Neely, Stuart M. Thomas (additional); Debbie Wiseman (leftovers?).]
ZOEY 101 (TV SERIES) -- Scott Clausen. Son of the prolific Simpsons composer Alf Clausen, Scott turns out to have been the first victim on this TV series. [Eric Hester.]
ZOEY 101 (TV SERIES) -- Eric Hester. His Pilot score retained, but episodes 2, 3 and 4's scores by Hester, rejected and replaced. [Michael Corcorone (Corcoran?).]
2006
A GOOD YEAR -- Dario Marianelli. Quote the orchestrator on his official site (from an old News blurb, since pushed out; Nick Ingman):
"It was also a great pleasure to work on the new Ridley Scott film, "A Good Year" starring Russell Crowe, with a very touching score by Dario Marianelli". [Marc Streitenfeld.]
AKEELA AND THE BEE -- Terrance Blanchard. Working on the score, Blanchard found it and his studio destroyed when hurricane Catrina hit; he moved over to Los Angeles, finished the score, and unfortunately had it replaced. INFO. [Aaron Zigman.]
BONNEVILLE -- Shie Rozow. Critics weren't too fond of the film and the film couldn't (and still can't) find a distributor, and when that happened they decided to do some changes, which including replacing the score. The sound clips on his site (A Love In Pictures, Ashes To Water, Pacific Coast Highway, I Hope You Find Your Father, Farewell to Joe, On The Road, 'L' For Lucsious, and Vibrating Bed) are from the score. A frequent music editor on Elfman projects, I can't help but feel his score was a good choice. INFO. [Jeff Cardoni.]
THE DARWIN AWARDS -- Graeme Revell. INFO. [David Kitay.]
DISTORTION -- ?????. In post on the replacement composer group's site (which is now gone with the site re-design), mention was made of replacing a score and a bunch of people having to work to finish up a new one. [Anreas Helmle, Francesco Tortora & Tom Botay.]
THE EX (AKA: FAST TRACK) -- Nathan Larson. INFO (Q&As). [Edward Shearmur.]
FREEDOM WRITERS -- RZA. From an online interview, it seemed he was excited to score the film, started back as far as June. [Mark Isham.]
GHOST FACTORY -- Pauli Houseman. Produced by Paul Freeman, the film ended up being shelved and not gettign released. The CD "Minor Thrills" contains selections from the score. No listing on imdb.com yet and it appears the film is in "developement hell". [Nathan Lanier (a music editor on Lord of the Rings).]
*THE GOOD GERMAN -- David Holmes. Holmes initially did a score is Belfast, Ireland, but it was rejected (not a completed score). So then he completed a score in LA; temped with Morricone 70's like scores, Soderberg loved & approved the whole thing, but it was thought it conflicted with the era of the film. I'm told the score is best described as a cross between David Bowie and Philip Glass, and is different from what Holmes has normally done; also fusing electronic and classical. Some of his rejected score is re-used in the short he scored called, "The 18th Electricity Plan", and a 2009 film Holmes was being considered to score ("The Girlfriend Experience"; he didn't end up scoring). INFO. [Thomas Newman.]
THE GUTTER DIARIES -- Jesse Waldman. With only three weeks to write and record his score, Mayrand finished, yet not all his score was used in the end. Four samples of his score are on his site. Waldman does not appear to have a website. [Alain Mayrand; Jesse Waldman (leftovers).]
HAPPILY N' EVER AFTER -- James L. Venable. INFO. [Paul Buckley; Andy Carroll, Nick Amour, Phil Sawyer & Will Johnstone (all additional).]
THE LAKE HOUSE -- Paul M. van Brugge. Reportedly the movie press junket did not list him at all, so I guess none of his score made it in the final cut, even though it was recorded. [Rachel Portman.]
MARIGOLD -- David Newman. Now this one is messy. I originally read that Newman was only the music supervisor and that Shankar Mahadevan, Loy Mendonsa and Ehsaan Noorani were going to score it. Then one of those people said in an interview that they were doing the songs and that Newman was using the themes. [Graeme Revell.]
MASTERS OF HORROR: "HAECKEL'S TALE" -- The Residents. The director of the episode, John McNaughton, asked the group to do a score but for what ever reason it was not used. In 2010 the score (presumably the original recording) was released on a CD of scoring work from the group, titled Strange Culture / Haeckel's Tale. [Nicholas Pike.]
+MIAMI VICE -- RZA (Robert Diggs). "Rizzah" as he likes to say it -- among his many names -- did a whole score, even song(s). But that changed and John Murphy (who has most of his score left in), replaced him. About a month before the film opened, imdb.com still had him listed for one song, but now that is gone as well; I assume nothing of his score is left. A couple years after the incident, RZA had this short comment when asked about it: "Yeah that got cancelled". [Klaus Badelt; Mark Batson (additional), Ian Honeyman (additional), John Murphy (survivor), King Britt & Tim Motzer (six additional score cues), Tommy Coster (four cues; unsure if left in) and who knows who else...]
NACHO LIBRE -- Beck (singer/songwriter, not Christophe Beck, big fluffy bearded composer extraordinaire). Two turn-tables and a second rejected score (insert little David Spade snicker). Yes, the singer/song writer. When asked about whether replacement composer Danny Elfman was still going to have his name removed from the film, Elfman's agent said no (though it's only cues in the end credits list). Also, the agent said there are 2/3 Elfman score in the film, the rest is from Beck's rejected score. Elfman replaced him so late that his name didn't appear on any posters. Elfman came onboard sometime in late April I believe. INFO. [Danny Elfman; Beck (leftovers).]
+NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM -- John Ottman. Just a difference between the director and Ottman. INFO. [Alan Silvestri (for now).]
+PREY (video game) -- KMFDM (industrial rock group). In an interview the replacement composer mentions having three months to replace a previous score, which was composed by KMFDM but not completed; the score, described by a 3D Realms spokes person, was described as "cosmic industrial". The group had been on the game a long time prior, as the game was on and off again for somewhere over a decade of Development Hell. Supposedly one of the tracks was used in "Heavy Metal 2000" ("Missing Time"). [Jeremy Soule; Julian Soule, Nick Murray, Cara Wong (additional).]
+THE QUEEN -- Nathan Larson. INFO (Q&As). [Alexander Desplat.]
THE REAPING -- Philip Glass & Ravi Shamkar. INFO. No chance of a possible future release, saldy, according to Orange Mountain Music :-( . [John Frizzell (so far).]
REDLINE -- Wyclef Jean. Scored the movie and also made a cameo in it; probably not left in. [Klaus Badelt and possibly others.]
STORMBREAKER -- Trevor Jones. INFO. [Alan Parker.]
THERAPEUTIC TOUCH -- Glen Stark. While none of the score was left in the film, Stark received a credit in thanks, and if you click on his name you'll be taken to a page with two cues. INFO (coming). [Kevin Fox & Jason Greenberg.]
YOU, ME, AND DUPREE -- Rolfe Kent. Soundtrack.net attended the session. The reason for rejection can be found on Kent's official site. Just incase Soundtrack.net removes the page, I'd made all details available here: INFO. [Theodore Shapiro.]
THE WOODS -- Jayne Barnes Luckett. Officially released by La La Land Records. [John Frizzell.]
+ZOOM -- Rupert Gregson-Williams. INFO. [Christophe Beck.]
2007
????? -- George Shaw. In November, 2007, he wrote in an update on films he ahd worked on, the following about it:
There was another feature film that I scored over the summer, but the score I wrote got thrown out. It's a common occurrence that has happened to all the biggest composers in Hollywood, so despite a little disappointment, I'm not terribly upset. Personally I'm very proud of the music I've written for this project, and hope to one day release an album so it doesn't just sit on a shelf collecting dust. But for now, take a listen to the main theme:
Shaolin Story
The cue has since been removed from his site. [?????.]
AFGHAN KNIGHTS -- Stu Goldberg. None of Goldberg's score remains in the film. [Jon Lee.]
A L'INTERIEUR -- Raphael Gesqua. Ten cues can be heard on his MySpace (separate) page HERE. [Francois Eudes.]
ARCTIC TALE -- Alex Wurman. INFO (pending). [Joby Talbot.]
BALLS OF FURY -- Craig Weirden. This FilmMusicWeekly online magazine review asks him about his score, which he said he did, but the studio didn't like. INFO. [Randy Edelman.]
BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD -- Richard Rodney Bennett. On Burwell's site he mentions he replaced a score (but didn't say who). Before his death, Bennett stated in an interview that he had two scores rejected and after the first, Andre Previn called him and said "Welcome to the club". INFO. [Carter Burwell.]
BORDERLINE -- Dan Redfeld. A press release for a broadway musical -- before the rejection -- mentions he completed scoring the film. [Andrew Kaiser.]
CHARLIE BARTLETT -- Bruno Coon. Coon maintains a "Special Thanks To" credit in the end credits. INFO. [Christophe Beck.]
CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR -- RY Cooder & Jon Hassell. INFO (empty for now). [James Newton Howard and probably others; that means you, Stuart M. Thomas.]
COUNTING BACKWARDS -- Kieran MacManus (Elvis Costello's brother). Some score may be left in the film. The replacement composer tells in an interview that the previous score was a beautiful piano work, but apparently the film was changing from what it originally was, and he had little time to do a new score. [Marc Jackson; Zoo Street Music (additional).]
FAR NORTH -- Michael Nyman. Originally brought onboard himself to replace Marianelli, Nyman recorded his score but for what ever reason they switched back to Dario. INFO. [Dario Marianelli.]
FEAST OF LOVE -- Rachel Portman. [Stephen Trask.]
FLOOD -- Michel Cusson. A symphonic-electronic hybrid score. INFO. [Debbie Wiseman.]
FRED CLAUS -- Rolfe Kent. Kent reported on his site that his score was replaced. INFO. [Christophe Beck.]
GRACE IS GONE -- Max Richter. And so is social graces, as Eastwood saw the movie in January '07, and offered to score the film; obviously he must have not noticed the film was already scored. Way to take someone's chance, Clint -- now he's the man with no name. If you or someone you know has a cut of the movie with Richter's score (I don't care how you got it), could you please write down and e-mail me anything from the end credits pertaining to Richter's score (orchestrator, orchestra, music editor, so forth). [Clint Eastwood.]
I COULD NEVER BE YOUR WOMAN -- Mike Hedges. His first film score; completed and recorded, according to an old agency blurb. [David Kitay (according to his old designed website, but with the new re-design, the credit was gone -- rejected score?).]
JERICHO (video game) -- Allister Brimble & Anthony Putson. According to the replacement composer in an interview, Clive Barker didn't like the score that was done, leaving not a lot of time to do a new one. [Cris Velasco.]
THE KILLING OF JOHN LENNON -- Makana. According to a MusicFromtheMovies article, about 90% of his score was replaced and only a little left in. Sadly, this appears to be his first film score. [Martin Kiszko; Lorne Balfe, Rhett Brewer, Tony Clark (additional).]
KILLSHOT -- Stephen Warbeck. INFO. [Klaus Badelt; Ian Honeyman (arranger), Andrew Raiher (additional).]
MANOLETE -- Matthew Herbert. His new CD, Score, contains two cues from his rejected score. The score uses altered sample of blood, hair, bulls, and what not to make something quite different. INFO. [Gabriel Yared.]
MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS -- RY Cooder. The guitar flavored score, which got some positive mentions in early screenings, has -- it seems -- been replaced after a few negative comments. As I recall, Mr. Umebayashi had this listed on his website during the time, but with Cooder having cues on the soundtrack, it would seem his score was kept; if somebody can watch the opening credits and see who is credited, that would help clear this one up. INFO (empty for now, as it appears Cooder's score may have been re-instated). [Shigeru Umebayashi.]
MR. MAGORIUM'S WONDER EMPORIUM -- Patrick Doyle. Doyle replaced Desplat initially, then Doyle' score was replaced in short order. Supposedly Desplat had completed a score before Zigman came in to "co-compose". INFO. INFO (empty for now). [Alexandre Desplat, Aaron Zigman (co-composer).]
MUST READ AFTER MY DEATH -- Albrecht Kunze. An article on the film's troubled production went on to describe what happened in some detail:
Lipsky hated the sound quality of the film and offered to pay to have the soundtrack cleaned up and remixed. Gigantic also found a new composer to rescore the film. Morgan liked the original score but felt it didn’t fit.
Festival crowds were even less enthusiastic—at a Q&A at IFDA, Morgan had asked who in the audience didn’t like the score, and 90% of the crowd raised their hands.
[Paul Damian Hogan.]
OCEAN OF PEARLS -- Joseph LoDuca. [Pinar Toprak.]
+THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL -- Edward Shearmur. INFO. [Paul Cantelon.]
7EVENTY 5IVE -- Wyclef Jean. [Vincent Gillioz; Marcus Blanchard (additional).]
STARDUST -- John Ottman. The story goes like this: Eshkeri was scoring it first, but then Ottman came in an recorded a score in February 2007; none of Ottman's was retained. [Ilan Eshkeri.]
+STONE'S WAR -- Titas Petrikis. Tuomas Kantelinen was also credited at some sites for this before Titas. Titas didn't get to finish recording his score when production moved away from his country. Rejected on November 25 (what a lousey Thanksgiving Day gift, eh?). INFO. [Joel Goldsmith, R.I.P. (his final known film score).]
WHY DID I GET MARRIED? -- Brian McKnight. Originally scored it, and had a small small role in it too (left in I believe); on top of that, he also scored another movie in 2007 ("Daddy's Little Girls"), marking the beginning of his scoring career from his usual songs. [Aaron Zigman.]
THE WORLD UNSEEN -- Shigeru Umebayashi. Umebayashi talked briefly about his score, before it was replaced, in an interview, saying it was difficult to do. [Richard Blackford.]
WRITE & WRONG (TV movie) -- Jonathan Grossman. A song/score like Goldsmith's "Legend". [David Schwartz.]
2008
THE BLACK WATERS OF ECHO'S POND -- Marcello De Francisci. One cue still up on his MySpace page. [Henry Manfredini.]
CARRIERS -- David Julyan. INFO. [Peter Nashel.]
CHINAMAN'S CHANCE (AKA: I AM SOMEBODY: NO CHANCE IN HELL) -- Tom Erba. Mr. Kellogg's second score, previously just being a supervisor. Kellogg is the fourth composer on the film; in 2006 Jason Frederick was reported as the composer. [Greg Kellogg; Perris Alexander..]
THE CURSED -- Charles Bernstein. Bernstein recorded all his score and apparently was the second composer on the film; first one is not known at this time. [Deane Ogden.]
THE CURSED -- Deane Ogden. [Anthony Flynn.]
DISGRACE -- Cezary Skubiszewski. INFO. [Antony Partos.]
THE EXPRESS -- Peter Afterman. INFO. [Mark Isham.]
THE EX LIST: "PILOT" -- Matt Messina. [Kelly & Kamille Rudisill.]
THE EYE -- Angelo Badalamenti. The film changed directors and out went Badalamenti's score. [Marco Beltrami.]
FRINGE (Pilot) -- Michael Giacchino. Originally a darker score in a different style was done, but not liked, so a new more friendly score was made. [Michael Giacchino.]
GEARS OF WAR 2 (video game) -- Kevin Reipl. Though the credit still remains on Reipl's site, the page with samples and info has been removed (even from a Google cache). There is a lengthy bootleg of Reipl's score around. [Steve Jablonsky; Kevin Reipl (some leftover "atmospheric" pieces).]
GOMORRA -- Matthew Herbert. Herbert did a score which was not used; one cut appears on the CD soundtrack. [No original score.]
INCENDIARY -- Barrington Pheloug. INFO. [Shigeru Umebayashi.]
+THE INFORMERS -- Clint Mansell & Justin Meldal-Johnsen. JM-J wrote on his site he was scoring the film with Mansell. While doing an internet search comes up with him doing songs, on his personal website he said he was co-scoring also. This is/was JM-J's only known scoring credit. Rejection of the score came approximately late March/early April, best I can tell. [Christopher Young.]
KANDISHA -- Richard Horowitz. INFO. [Kenneth Lampl.]
KIT KITTRIDGE: AN AMERICAN GIRL -- Lesley Barber. Mrs. Barber has been kind enough to post a handful of cues from her score on her website. INFO. [Joseph Vitarelli; Lesley Barber (leftovers).]
THE MEERKATS -- Dario Marianelli. INFO. [Sarah Class, Klaus Badelt (additional).]
ORANGES -- Dean Ogden. Written as a last-minute replacement score; Mr. Ogden had, as I recalled, a post on his MySpace page about rejected scores, but it is gone now. [Jon Lee, Dean Ogden (leftovers).]
+THE PARDON -- John Novello. At the time I put this on the list, it was showing to open in 2008, but the film ended up not opening until 2013 (and even then, as of late 2016 IMDb only shows it opened in the U.S. and Germany). INFO (pending). [Ashley Irwin.]
PUNISHER: WAR ZONE -- Christopher Franke. The director, Lexi Alexander, was fired even after the film was done being shot, and along with replacing him, they replaced the score. John Debney may have done a score in between the two as well. [Michael Wandmacher.]
SAY HELLO TO STAN TALMADGE -- Marco D'Ambrosio. [Jeff Cardoni.]
THE SEVENTH CIRCLE -- Weston Woodbury. [Peter Toth & Peter Erdelyi.]
SMART PEOPLE -- Aaron Zigman. Before the rejection of the score, a promo which was labled to be from the agency representing him at the time, started appearing online with 29 tracks; astute collectors can still hunt it down. INFO. [Nuno Bettencourt; Scott W. Hallgren (additional).]
SPACE CHIMPS -- Dave A. Stewart. Sweet dreams aren't made of this, I suppose. INFO. [Chrispy Bacon; Chris Dyas, Matt Goldman, Todd Perlmutter, Phil Stanton, Jeff Turlik & Chris Wink (additional).]
TENNESSEE -- Scott Bomar. "Bomar said he created an intimate score for the film, playing most of the instruments himself and recording mainly at his home Electrophonic studio.". [Mario Grigorov.]
WHITEOUT -- Atli Orvarsson. [John Frizzell.]
2009
500 DAYS OF SUMMER -- Andrea von Foerster. Would have been her(?) second known film score. [Mychael Danna & Rob Simonsen; Amritha Fernandes Bakshi (additional), Kevin Teasley (additional).]
ANGELS AT SEA -- Luc Sicard. [Olivier Struye.]
ANOTHER HARVEST MOON -- Kenny Barron. INFO (pending). [Rick Garcia & William V. Malpede.]
BROOKLYN'S FINEST -- Antonio Pinto. According to one site, Pinto specifically ordered something called a M4000 cycling mellotrons, to create an atmospheric backdrop. INFO (pending). [Marcelo Zarvos.]
CITY OF EMBER -- Douglas Pipes. Some still left in. [Andrew Lockington; Douglas Pipes (leftovers).]
THE CITY OF YOUR FINAL DESTINATION -- Richard Robbins. For whatever reason the film got pushed back from 2007 to the point of being shown in 2009. Reportedly Robbins was not in good health and couldn't finish his score. [Jorge Drexler.]
CHILLED IN MIAMI (AKA: NEW IN TOWN) -- Unknown music group. Described -- before the rejection -- as something like: "the best music group you've never heard of" and that this was going to be the break out gig; sadly the group was not named. [John Swihart.]
EDGE OF DARKNESS -- John Corigliano. The film was re-edited and some new shots put in to make it more action-oriented, and a new score done since many of the previous Corigliano cues no longer fit. On May 20, 2012, Perseverance Records released the rejected score. INFO. [Howard Shore.]
LA PREMIERE ETOILE -- Anne Consigny. [Erwann Kermorvant.]
THE MERRY GENTLEMAN -- Jon Sadoff & Sean Douglas. The 2008 festival premiere still had their score in tact. One agency promo for Sadoff contains one cue from the score. Shearmur started recording his score in late 2008. [Edward Shearmur.]
NINE -- Maury Yeston. On top of scoring the musical which the film was based on, Yeston recorded a full score for the film months back, and song(s) (unknown if those will be retained). INFO. [Andrea Guerra.]
PIG HUNT -- Les Claypool (of Primus). Variety.com's note about the score in a review, before the rejection:
"Score by Les Claypool of Primus adds to hipster cachet; he and blues mouth harpist Charlie Musselwhite contribute cameo roles.". [David E. Russo.]
POWDER BLUE -- Aaron Zigman. Rachou had a little over two weeks to replace the previous score, as mentioned on his site. INFO. [Didier Rachou; Aaron Zigman (leftovers).]
SEE YOU IN SEPTEMBER -- Jeff Cardoni. Said Cardoni on his site:
"Had a great time on this little romantic comedy out of NYC. Turned out being a really small, scaled down score with acoustic guitar, upright bass, bells (of course), electric guitars, and a bit of smal strings.". There were six cues (12:53) son his site to listen to. At the time I made this entry on my site, Austin's name had taken place of Cardoni's on the IMDb page for the film, however the film opened up with Cardoni's score and additional music credited to Austin, so I've had to correct the listing [Jeff Cardoni; David A. Austin (additional).]
SHANGHAI -- Alex Heffes. Heffes originally replaced Gabriel Yared who did not do a score and had to leave the film to work on another project. INFO. [Klaus Badelt.]
TAKING CHANCE -- Marcelo Zarvos. In a November 27, 2013 interview (by Trevor Hogg), Zarvos said he jokes that he fired himself and threw away the whole score, saying he originally did an electronic score approach but soon realized the film needed a traditional orchestral score (spending six months on the scores). While there have been instances were parts or even half a score have been tossed and replaced by a composer, this is the first instance I know of where a composer of his own accord tossed his own full score. [Marcelo Zarvos.]
THE TOURNAMENT -- George Acogny. The first I have ever seen, Acogny -- despite having been replaced, has a "Additional Music By" in the film's trailer, after Karpman's credit. [Laura Karpman; James Edward Baker (additional); George Acogny (leftovers).]
THE YOUNG VICTORIA -- Sigur Ros. Did a score, but the studio had it replaced. Ros receives a "special thanks" in the end credits; maybe something is retained? The film was shown at early festivels with Ros' score in it. [Ilan Eshkeri.]
2010
A GOOD OLD FASHIONED ORGY -- Jeff Cardoni. INFO. [Sam Cardon.]
A GOOD OLD FASHIONED ORGY -- Sam Cardon. . [Jane Antonia Cornish; Sam Cardon (leftovers, at the time).]
A GOOD OLD FASHIONED ORGY -- Jane Antonia Cornish. When I contacted Cornish, she said it appeared an equal amount of both scores would be left in, but the film got pushed back and then... [Jon Sadoff.]
THE BEAVER -- Brian Reitzell & Jim James (of the band My Morning Jacket). James explained in a 2010 Billboard online interview (conducted by Jason Newman) that he and Reitzell made a "lot of super cool, super weird music that we felt was helping the film" but the producers wanted something more normal. However, James says they got to keep the music. In 2016 James released a solo LP titled Eternally Even that was based on ideas from a rejected score he did with Reitzell (but he doesn't say which one; the other was from 2012, titled "Goats"). [Marcelo Zarvos.]
BEYOND THE MAT -- Christopher Wong. Shown various times at festivals with Wong's score, as I understand, an even got some mention of the score, but for what ever reason a year or so later for national release, it's been rescored; go figure. [Shawn K. Clement.]
BEYOND THE MAT -- Shawn K. Clement. A year after all was said and done with Clemet's score, suddenly (in 2011; decided to list it with the other entry) the film had been rescored again. [Joel J. Richard.]
CAMPAMENTO FLIPY -- Fernando Velazquez. INFO. [Jorge Magaz.]
CA$H -- Tim Truman. INFO. [Jesse Voccia.]
THE CHAMELEON -- Bruno Coulais. Either unaware the score was replaced or wanting fans to hear it, Coulais has several cues on his website for it. [Jeff Cardoni.]
+CLASH OF THE TITANS -- Craig Armstrong & Neil Davidge. Davidge reported on his site that Hans Zimmer had replaced Armstrong (though IMDb.com listed Ramin Djawadi), and that Davidge was still working on his score cues for the film (so apparently, while working with Armstrong, his score material was going to be independent of Armstrong's themes). I don't know at this time how much of Armstrong's (very non Rosenthal) score was recorded, but some was. [Ramin Djawadi.]
CYRUS -- Alan Howarth. On November 14, 2019, Dragon's Domain Records released the score as part of The Alan Howarth Collection: Volume 1. While no explanation is given in the announcemt for the reason for the rejection, the announcement does give clues, saying, "After initial discussions about the score for the film, the director returned to Chicago to complete post-production there while Howarth composed, recorded, and mixed his score in Los Angeles.". At the time the film was apparently titlted "Highway Hunter" [Frederik Wiedmann; Hyesu Wiedmann (additional).]
EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES -- Alex Wurman. INFO. [Andrea Guerra.]
THE FIGHTER -- Jon Brion. In a 2012 Hollywood Reporter round table, director David O. Russell, following up on Ang Lee's reply to the question of the worst thing that ever happened to them then naming having to replace a composer on a film (not saying who, but everybody and their grandma knows it was "Hulk" and Danna [See: "MYTHS" at bottom of page]), Russell said:
David O' Russell: That happened to me with Jon Brion, who's a wonderful composer. He composed the music for one of my earlier films, and then on The Fighter he came to see an early cut, and he said, "You don't need a score." I said, "Well, we need a very light touch," knowing that he's a man who writes strong melodies. As friends, we wanted to work together. We then proceeded into this bad idea of him writing melodies that were very strong that did not belong in the movie. And I did not use it, which is heartbreaking.
I'm assuming the score was not finished, based on Russell's comments. [Michael Brook.]
JONAH HEX -- Mastodon (& John Powell; adapting, placing, and assisting). Said the band on the score before replacement:
"The resulting music is about an hour long in total, all instrumental, including five full songs and many smaller musical themes adapted throughout. Upon finishing, it was then given to composer John Powell (Shrek, The Bourne Identity), who will paste the music to the movie. Some of the material, Sanders said, will likely be adapted for the London Orchestra for particularly epic scenes. "We wrote variations on themes for each character, different variables for a bunch of riffs: faster, slower, heavier, lighter," Sanders said. "It's the Darth Vader approach."

iTunes has, as I recall, about 35 minutes of "score" for the film, which it's listed as being by Masterdon, so I'm guessing that's some of their rejected score -- if you are a member, or know a member of that band, please feel free to correct this. [Marco Beltrami.]
THE KARATE KID -- Atli Orvarsson. INFO (pending). [James Horner.]
KICK-ASS -- Ilan Eshkeri. In a article about a new assignment, it was mentioned Eshkeri would do this score before the upcoming "From Time to Time", and since that film score was recorded just recently, I am forced to conclude this was too. [Marius De Vries.]
KICK-ASS -- Marius De Vries. At the time I type this, word is from MovieScoreMagazine.com that the film -- so far -- will have scored from both rejected scores, in mixed in (no word on whether Murphy's now rejected score, will join the mix or if any of the first three rejected scores will be in the film when it opens); in other words: a huge mess. It was reported the composers worked together in a collaborative effort, but the problem is I saw the Twitter/Myspace/website announces when they were hired and having done their scores, and it wasn't all at once, with at least two months difference; maybe they came back in and worked on cues by other composers to touch up or finish, but the dates and comments they made at hiring, just don’t add up. [John Murphy.]
KICK-ASS -- John Murphy. In the end the orchestra who performed the scores said it took eight sessions. INFO (for all three). [Henry Jackman.]
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT -- Craig Wedren & Nathan Larson. With completed score, the film aired at Sundance. In a BMI interview-ette, Wedren mentions how good the score was and that it was "magical". Interestingly enough, he and Larson were replacements themselves (click HERE for first composers). For what ever reason, the film was rescored for national release. [Carter Burwell.]
KILLER BY NATURE -- Ray Calcord. Originally hired during post-production, Calcord did an unknown amount of score before the switch in composers. Calcord's site hasn't been updated since 2010 and his passing, so you can still see the film in his credits, and hear a two minute cue from his rejected score. [Kurt Oldman.]
KILLER BY NATURE -- Kurt Oldman. [Veigar Margeirsson.]
LONDON BOULEVARD -- Howard Shore. INFO. [Sergio Pizzorno.]
PEEP WORLD -- Nathan Barr. INFO. [Jeff Cardoni.]
RABBIT HOLE -- Owen Pallett. Abel Korzeniowski originally replaced Pallett, but then himself was replaced (he did an unknown amount of score). [Anton Sanko.]
STONE -- Jon Brion. In the end even though the end credits list who recorded the score and music editors, nobody is credited for the score, even though Brion did one; in the songs section of the end credits he is simply credited with "Musical Modules". And even though actor Edward Norton said while he was developing the script with the director he met with Johnny Greenwood and was friends with him, and that Greenwood and Thom Yorke sent them tons and tons of files of music, it doesn't appear any of it was used (unless not credited). Further complicating matters is that compsoer Cato says on his website he was asked to contribute ambient music, but he doesn't appear to be credited either in this film which appears to have a troubled music history. I can only presume, with no factual basis, that the score recordists and music editors listed on the film were for Brion, unless somebody else stepped in there and did a score and didn't get credit (which may be another composer reported to be scoring it, John O'Brien). [Jon Brion (leftovers, "Musical Modules").]
THE TOURIST -- Gabriel Yared. Yared recorded his score earlier 2010 in London. The Varese Sarabande CD release contained one cue from Yared's score. [James Newton Howard.]
THE WOLFMAN -- Paul Haslinger. The film's director said he was going to basically let Elfman run loose and do what he wanted, and what Elfman did was a large gothic, fantastic score. The film had troubles from the get-go, getting pushed back several times, loosing it's original director early on, and of course a test screening that did not go well at all. All this led to, as reported in late 2009, the rejected of Elfman's score (with Haslinger as the replacement), but in early January, 2010, an FSM article indicated Elfman's score has been re-instated, after Haslinger completed his. INFO. [Danny Elfman; Conrad Pope (additional; not for Elfman), Edward shearmur (additional), T.J. Lindgren (additional); and if that wasn't enough, the film may still have small portions of Haslinger's score in it... (leftovers?).]
YOUR HIGHNESS -- Paul Englishby. INFO. [Steve Jablonsky.]
2011
30 MINUTES OR LESS -- Nathan Barr. INFO. [Ludwig Goransson.]
ALPHAS: "PILOT" -- Stephen Endelman. Endelman had finished the pilot score and was working on score for another episode or episodes (as he was the original composer hired) but for what ever reason, the score(s) were dumped.. INFO. [Edward Rogers.]
+ARTHUR CHRISTMAS -- Michael Giacchino & Adam Cohen. I can't confirm it, but FilmTracks reports that Giacchino left over creative differences and only completely around 50% of the score, which is not all too different from what I had understood. [Harry Gregson-Williams; Philip Klein (additional).]
THE BUNKER -- Gary Finneran. Said the director on his website, he made a hard decision to replace Finneran's score after Finneran's death and not being able to find any copyright filed for the music. [Robert Feigenblatt; Josip Vilicic.]
BUNRAKU -- David Torn. INFO. [Terrence Blanchard.]
THE CHANGE-UP -- Theodore Shapiro. A CD-R with 21 tracks and 40:00 contains six cues by Shapiro. [John Debney; Tony Morales (additional); Theodore Shapiro (leftovers?).]
CHARLIE'S ANGELS: "ANGEL WITH A BROKEN WING" (Pilot) -- Jeff Russo. Russo completed a score of over 20 cues, with guitar, instruments, synthesizer sounds. About three months later the troubled series, in an attempt to save itself -- as typical for any troubled production -- got a new composer. INFO. [Louis Febre.]
THE CONVINCER -- Alex Wurman. Reviews that mentioned the score, as the film was shown at places like Sundance with Wurman' score in tact, ranged from "suitable" to "worked wonders". According to Wurman, he found out his score had been replaced when his assistant read a news article online about Danna being the new composer; apparently the film had been taken away from the director and among the changes made was a new score since Wurman's had reportedly been not testing well. INFO. [Jeff Danna.]
DOROTHY OF OZ -- James Michael Dooley. Back in May, 2011, a website that interviewed Dooley and a few other composers, said he had just finished his music for the film. [Deborah Lurie; James Michael Dooley (songs).]
DOROTHY OF OZ -- Deborah Lurie. The film was later in 2013 re-titled "Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return" and has another tentative release date of early 2014 (in other words, there's still time to replace Chu as well). [Toby Chu.]
DRIVE -- Johnny Jewel & Nat Walker. The instrumental/song artist said he had done a full score (and then some) for the film, but it was not used; and said in a recent interview there was no bad blood, as the director has asked him if he wants to score the upcoming planned remake of "Logan's Run". Jewel explained in a September, 2011 interview at BoxOffice.com (conducted by Todd Gilchrist) that he spent four months recording music for the film after loosing touch with the producers, but after reconnecting, he had a month to finish as the film was ready (I assume during the four months Jewel lost tough, they got Badalamenti); but there were too many cooks [producers] in the kitchen and the score was dumped, desptie the director and Ryan Gosling loving it. Jewel goes on to say he got 14 minutes in the movie (suggesting some score is still left in) but that he did three hours of score. He later released a CD titled Symmetry: Themes for an Imaginary Film, which contains some of the score along with other unrelated pieces of music he had been working on for years prior to the film. [Angelo Badalamenti.]
DRIVE -- Angelo Badalamenti. There is an early cut of the film floating around with Badalamenti credited as the composer. A website made a review, describing the score in the film. [Cliff Martinez.]
ELEPHANT WHITE -- Carlo Siliotto. Folk's score, probably more in line with sound design and atypical of his body of works, is perhaps one of his worst; a low budget and little time were likely culprits. INFO. [Robert Folk.]
EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE -- Nico Muhly. [Alexandre Desplat.]
GAME OF THRONES -- Stephen Warbeck. I was unable to relocate where I had read it, but I recalled reading some score was recorded (no idea how many episodes -- I assume just the initial, since orchestras and studio time cost big money). [Ramin Djawadi.]
THE GREATEST MIRACLE -- ?????. In a May, 2011 interview conducted by John Mansell over at Run Movies, McKenzie said he was asked to replace a score. [Mark McKenzie.]
HOLIDAY BEACH -- Ryan Rapsys. You can hear three cues from his score on his website; hired in early 2010. [Paul Hartwig.]
I DON'T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT -- Rachel Portman. INFO (pending). [Aaron Zigman.]
JENNY DIXON BEACH -- Michael Fugucio. In a 2016 interview, Fugucio stated the un-named Australian film had been in development for years; he knew the director and approached him about the score (which appears to have been his first film score). He made twenty-two demos to scenes the director sent him, but when he tried to fit them into the picture, naturally they didn't fit and the director rejected them and the Fugucio said the director got a keyboard and started trying to make the score himself. Fugucio also said he was the third or fourth composer on the film. In 2016 he released it on his own label, Hi-Res, titled Lost Score. [George Dimoudis, Jason Williams (of Hypnosis); Christopher Halling ("soundscore"; the director of the film).]
JOCK -- Marius Bouwer. The film got pushed back over two years; I would assume this is a case of changing the score later on after too much time to think about it. INFO. [Klaus Badelt, Ian Honeyman, Tommy Coaster; Marius Bouwer (leftovers).]
KILLER JOE -- CC Adcock. INFO. [Tyler Bates.]
LIMITLESS -- Nico Muly. According to the replacement composer in an interview, Muhly did a more classical score, while the producers told Morgan they wanted people to leave the theater thinking about what a "fucked up soundtrack" it had. Three and a half weeks to do it. [Paul Leonard-Morgan.]
THE LINCOLN LAWYER -- John Frizzell. Hired to take over for Mansell, Frizzell's replacement score -- which even one of the last new trailers had his name in it -- was in turn replaced and Martinez's re-inserted. . [Cliff Martinez.]
THE MANOR REBORN (mini seires) -- ?????. Nicolaides had little time to rescore four episodes. [Chris Nicolaides; Jon Chilton and Michael Doherty (additional, for Nicolaides).]
MY WEEK WITH MARILYN -- Stephen Warbeck. INFO. [Conrad Pope, Alexandre Desplat (theme).]
NO MORE ROOM IN HELL (video game) -- Rich Douglas. . Douglas released his rejected score on Bandcamp, saying soe is still left in the game and used in the trailers. [Garrett Lindquist; Rich Douglas (leftovers).]
THE ORANGES -- Grant Lee Phillips. [Klaus Badelt.]
THE PRODIGIES -- Craig Armstong. INFO. [Klaus Badelt; Christopher Carmichael (additional score).]
SANCTUM -- John Gray. INFO. [David Hirschfelder.]
SATIN -- Kurt Oldman. Oldman was the originally announced composer, who had worked with the director before. According to a news report, he was also to arrange all the on-screen performkances and "supervise filming of musical elements". As far back as 2004 he was the composer (the film was going by "Jack Satin" for a while) and the film then either got shelved or was in production Hell for a few years before finally opening in 2011. In the years leading up to 2011, Oldman had about a dozen cues from the score on his website in mp3 format (now gone). [Joseph Bauer.]
SEVEN DAYS IN UTOPIA -- William Ross. INFO. [Klaus Badelt.]
SHOUTING SECRETS -- Zeljko Marasovich. [Matthias Weber & Lisbeth Scott.]
THE SMURFS -- John Powell. I believe this was the film Patrick Doyle, a friend who Powell used to work with, said in a recent interview Powell ended up having to do a complete new score; apparently that didn't work out. INFO. [Heitor Pereira.]
TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY -- Michael Price. [Alberto Iglesias.]
THE VOW -- Rachel Portman. On July 9, Film Music Reporter reported Brook was "co-scoring" the film, but Portman had recorded her score a few months earlier in London. INFO. [Michael Brook; Rachel Portman (possibly leftovers).]
2012
666 PARK AVENUE: "PILOT" -- John Ottman. Morris' score was an 11th hour rush job after Ottman's replacement; supposedly the score was not disliked but rather a different direction was wanted. Morris went on to score all 12 episodes of the series before it was finally shit-canned. [Trevor Morris.]
BACHERLORETTE -- Michael Wandmacher. [Andrew Feltenstein, John Nau.]
BEL AMI -- Rachel Portman. This is a hard one to pin down and may end up being removed. Portman recorded her score late Summer 2011; in August Saram mentioned in and interview he finished his score, saying it was "72 pages" -- a typical length of a full film score (and makes no mention of Portman or involvement of another composer). The film's trailer lists both composers for the music, and Varese Sarabande released the CD, with cues from both composers, with symbols by who did what. [Rachel Poartman (leftovers?), Lakshman Joseph de Saram.]
+DREDD -- Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow. Originally hired to score the film, and they started on a synth-heavy score which for reasons unknown, was dropped. The duo continued work on the music, re-working their ideas into longer expanded works, and other cues not made, for a conceptual album called "DROKK: Music Inspired By Mega-City One". [Paul Leonard-Morgan.]
ERNEST ET CELESTINE -- Goran Bregovic. The L'Etrange Festival lists this film in their 2012 festival and credits Bregovic with the score, suggesting the showing may have had his score in tact. The score CD release only contained the replacement composer's score. [Vincent Courtois.]
THE FOUNDER -- Marc Teichert. [Eric Dean Hordes and Florian Linckus .]
GANGSTER SQUAD -- Carter Burwell. INFO. [Steve Jablonsky.]
GOATS -- Brian Reitzell & Jim James (of the band My Morning Jacket). James explained in a 2010 Billboard online interview (conducted by Jason Newman) that he and Reitzell had "scored three-fourths of the movie to picture" bu that the producers were scared because they knew the film wasnt' good and wanted scene to sound musically how they thought it should, to help the film. [Woody Jackson & Jason Schwartzman; Tracey and Vance Marino (additional).]
PEACE, LOVE, & MISUNDERSTANDING -- Stephen Endelman. Even though Endelman isn't the credited composer or even credited for additional music, his assistant still recieves a credit. INFO. [Spencer David Hutchings.]
TAD, THE LOST EXPLORER -- James Peterson. Late 2011/early 2012 posted on his website that this score, along with "Margarine Wars", was completed. Unknown if any is left in the film, though IMDb does list Peterson as "additional music". Only Riva is credited with the score selections which appear on the MovieScore Media release; the label previously release Peterson's excellent score for "The Red Canvas". [Zacarías M. de la Riva; James Peterson (leftovers); Alex Martinez (additional).]
TO THE WONDER -- Jerod Tate. Tate's score was announced to be recorded early summer, 2012, as the comoposer for the film, but, however, as with Terrence Malick films lately, they open with a completely different composer (who may have little of his or her score left in, if they are lucky). [Hanan Townshend; Francesco Lupica (additional), Jerod Tate (additional).]
UPSIDE DOWN -- Mark Isham. Originally Benoit Charset, who was the first composer, was replaced and Isham was announced as the new composer, but for unknown reasons the film opened with Charset's score. At this time (September, 2013) you can still go to Isham's page at Kraft-Engel Management and listen to a cue from his score. [Benoit Charset.]
2013
1 OUT OF 7 -- Joshua J. Hyde. [Frederik Wiedmann.]
ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN -- Edward White. White was also not the original composer on the film, with Ilan Eshkeri being first (I have no idea how far Eshkeri got). [Thomas Wanker.]
BEYOND: TWO SOULS (Video game) -- Normand Corbeil, R.I.P.. Balfe's site does no mention Corbeil and the CD release did not contain any score by Corbeil. This was Corbeil's final score before passing away. [Lorne Balfe; Max Aruj (additional), Gary Dworetsky (additional).]
BLACK NATIVITY-- Terence Blanchard. [Laura Karpman.]
BLACK ROCK -- Peter Golub. The film opened at Sundance with Golub's score in tact and recieved positive reviews that included "energetic score" and "Peter Golub's score, heavy on the stentorian strings you want in a thriller, also deserves kudos"; I'm assuming that when the picture got picked up for distribution, the studio had it rescored. [Ben Lovett.]
DELIVERY MAN -- Christopher Lennertz. INFO. [Jon Brion.]
EDGE OF TOMORROW -- Ramin Djawadi. INFO. [Christophe Beck; Darren Rutter (additional).]
THE ICEMAN -- Gilad Benamram. Originally announced for an early 2009 release, Benamram said of the score he was going to doi, in an interview prior to the initial release date:
GILAD: My next project is "The Ice Man" - the true story of a serial killer that worked for the Mafia in NY in the 60's and 70's. I plan on producing a great mix of dark orchestral scoring along side special closed miced solo instruments and a heightened use of sounds from the actual production and dialog within the score. Watch out for that one around beginning of 2009, it's gonna be a Killer film...

When the film came out in 2013, he was no longer the composer, and the score CD only features Mazar's work. [Haim Mazar.]
THE HUSBAND -- ?????. In a 2015 interview Kobakov said he was asked to score a film that already had music and that he remembered it only being about nine days to rescore the film. [Todor Kobakov & Ian LeFeuvre; Matthew Kingsley (additional).
jOBS -- Lucas Vidal. Originally scheduled for a late 2012 release, the film has only had a Sundance premiere in the U.S. in late January, 2013. FilmMusicReporter.com did a mini Q&A with the composer on the assignment during the time when he had started writing it (click on "INFO" for link and text). INFO. [John Debney.]
THE LAST EXORCISM PART II -- Taylor Kirk (of Timber Timbre). Kirk did a score, after being asked by the director, which was not used; reportedly for being "too cool". Later in 2014 the album Last Ex was released that contained, among other tracks, re-worked cues from the rejected score. [Michael Wandmacher.]
MAD MAX: FURY ROAD -- Elliot Wheeler. Wheeler's score was done earlier 2013, with a good portion finished in April. [Junkie XL.]
MAX ROSE -- Michel Legrand. Before the score's replacement, reviews online were not kind, describing it as: "...the syrupy Michel Legrand score that accompanies every obvious push of an emotional button." (Hollywood Reporter) and "director Daniel Noah looks like a '90s-era Lifetime original and sounds not a lot livelier thanks to Michel Legrand's wallowing piano score." (Variety). Whirledge wasn't the final composer either, as for a few months the IMDb page for the film listed Volker Bertelmann. INFO (pending). Whirledge has put his score on his website for listening. The film has a Cannes premiere in May, 2013, and that's it (which Legrand attended) -- no other releases and as of April 29, 2015, there are no upcoming releases for the film on IMDb. [Morgan Z. Whirledge.]
MAY IN THE SUMMER -- Carlos Siliotto. Siliotto's completed score was used when the film was shown at the Sundance Film Festival, and descriptions of the score ran from: "Propelled by Carlo Siliotto's jaunty Middle-East-meets-West score, it moves along breezily, especially in the early action ..." (Hollywood Reporter) to "Carlo Siliotto's bizarrely discordant ethno-sitcom score" (HitFix). INFO. [Kareem Roustom.]
MONSOON SHOOTHOUT -- Christopher Slaski & Rael Jones. You can hear two cues from the rejected score on Slaski's website. [Gingger Shankar; William Stranbro (additional).]
THE NECESSARY DEATH OF CHARLIE COUNTRYMAN -- Moby. A few songs performed by Moby, are kept in the film. INFO. [Christophe Beck & Dead Mono (Dead Mono may consist of Alexander Malcolm Pardon & Fredrik Rinman).]
NOW YOU SEE ME -- David Sardy. Sardy was not the first composer on the film, with the duo the Chemical Brothers initially being hired (supposedly they backed out). INFO. [Brian Tyler.]
OLDBOY -- Bruce Hornsby. Hornsby did a full score, that the director loved, which was not used. [Michael Nyman.]
+OLDBOY -- Michael Nyman. Speaking about the replacement on his Facebook page, Nyman said:
OLDBOY UPDATE!!!! Spike Lee loves my score. Unfortunately the producers, Matt Leonetti and Audrey Something-or-Other [of WeTakethePiss Productions] don't like the soundtrack and [despite, or because of, their boast that 'we know nothing about music'] have rejected it. But at least some good comes out of it: my 11th Symphony will be called 'Spiked' [by analogy with journalists' work which is commissioned, printed in galley proof form, rejected and consigned to oblivion by being hung on a spike sticking out of the wall close to the editor's desk].
. The film's opening date was pushed back, presumably for time to do Banos' score. [Roque Banos; Bruce Hornsby (at this time, there may be leftovers in the film).]
PLANES -- James Seymour Brett. [Mark Macina.]
ROMEO AND JULIET -- James Horner. According to a couple people who saw screenings of the film before the replacement, Hormer's score included references (as usual) to passed scores he did, which included: "Sneakers", "Apollo 13" (Master Alarm), "The Pelican Brief" (garage chase danger motif); hints of "Glory" and "Braveheart" in theme. The score was reportedly more in line with his '90's output. Originally Sony Classical announced a score CD. In a January, 2014 interview with long-time music editor for Horner, Jim Hendrickson, Hendrickson says there were disagreements amongst producers and ultimately the dreaded test audience, that did the score in. . INFO. [Abel Korzeniowski.]
SAVING SANTA -- Christopher Farrell. Farrell wasn't the first composer, either, as a late 2012 interview with James Seymour Brett had him stating (along with resume at his representation) he was going to be scoring the film. [Grant Olding.]
SEGRT HLAPIC -- Christopher Slaski. You can hear two uces from the rejected score on his website. [Anita Andreis.]
SEVENTH SON -- Tuomas Kantelinen and A.R. Rahman. In late 2012 the two, who have worked together before on scoring, were announced to do the films' score. On July 12, 2013, Rahman wrote in his Twitter page: "Due to schedule incompatibility, I will not be scoring the Hollywood movie "Seventh Son". All other movies are on in full swing!", yet the score had been recorded over three months prior to that (assuming Rahman is being honest, this would have to mean he was doing his music independently of Kantelinen. [Marco Beltrami.]
STOKER -- Philip Glass. The Milan Records CD release contains one cue from Glass' rejected score ["Duet"]; at this time I do not know if any is left in the film. [Clint Mansell.]
THIS THING WITH SARAH -- Mason Brothers. [Allyson Newman.]
THOR [2]: THE DARK WORLD -- Carter Burwell. INFO. [Brian Tyler.]
+VOYAGE SANS RETOUR -- Eric Demarsan. The Demarsan fansite explains that Demarsan had been recording his score in Budapest, April, 2009, but that there was a "break" during the recording; assuming I am understanding what was written, the score was not finished recording when they decided to not use it. The film's director is listed as "co-composer" on IMDb. [Sagar Desai & Francois Gerard.]
WALKING WITH DINOSAURS 3D -- David Hirschfelder. INFO. [Paul Leonard-Morgan.]
2014
300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE -- Federico Jusid. Jusid recorded a full score which was not used. Most, if not all, of the score he did later surfaced in December, 2019 on a INFO. [Trevor Morris;.]
DOGS ON THE INSIDE (documentary) -- ?????. The director stated on a business website of his that they were under the gun to replace the score and that Gray had one month to do a new one. [Sam Gray.]
DYING OF THE LIGHT -- ?????. Director Paul Schrader publically commented that the studio took the film away from him, re-cut it and rescored it. Schrader, executive producer Nicolas Winding Refn, and stars Nicholas Cage and Anton Yelchin have all spoken in defense of Schrader and his original cut. [Frederik Wiedmann.]
HOT BOT -- Kubilay Uner. Toyne took over scoring in February. [Jeff Toyne.]
HOW TO MAKE LOVE LIKE AN ENGLISHMAN -- David Newman. Recorded earlier in 2014, Newman did a modern score with guitars, percussion and small orchestra. Endelman finished his score in September that year. After some delay, the film finally opened up in the U.S. and not does the trailer list both composers (a very rare occurance), but both composers are listed in the opening credits of the film, each getting their own seperate screen credit (I have no idea what the final count of used music is for both composers). [Stephen Endelman; David Newman (leftovers).]
JINN - Noah Sorota. In an April 27, 2014 audio interview (conducted by Kaya Savas) with Film Music Media, Sorota eplained he scored the film twice, with the first attempted in 2012 with a more adventurous score recorded at Warner Bros., but then sometime later the film was re-shot and re-edited and made darker and he was called up to do a new score (darker in tone). A super rare instance of a composer replacing his own score and the replacement score is kept. [Noah Sorota.]
KLONDIKE (mini series) -- Rob Lane. An unknown amount of score is left in (presumably just the pilot), as well as songs (according to IMDb). I don't know how many episodes he scored before the replacement. [Adrian Johnson; Rob Lane (leftovers).]
SINGLE MOMS CLUB -- Aaron Zigman. INFO. [Christopher Young; Aaron Zigman (leftovers?).]
SQUIRREL TO THE NUTS -- Stephen Endelman. Endelman's score was recorded early 2014, before April. [Edward Shearmur.]
YEARS OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY: (presumably just the pilot) -- Fil Eisler (AKA: iZLER). After the replacement, the composer's resume at the agency which represents him, changed his credit to "Additional Music", suggesting some of it will be kept. [Richard Marvin; Thomas Newman (theme).]
2015
????? -- Devonté Hynes. Hynes posted a little over 45 minutes of his score to Youtube after he reported he was fired from the un-named film. [?????.]
3 GENERATIONS -- Michael Brook. Shown at festivals with Brook's score in tact. An obscure promo with Brook's score, is available if you can find it. [West Dylan Thordson.]
BLACKHAT -- Atticus & Leopold Ross. Earlier in 2014 Ross did his score [Harry Gregson-Williams; Atticus Ross (additional?).]
BLACKHAT -- Harry Gregson-Williams. As stated by Gregson-Williams in an interview in September, 2014 -- Gregson-Williams recorded 80 minutes of score in June. As Mann films as constantly edited up until the end and the precise running time can't really be known for certain, the reported running time is 133 minutes, making 80 minutes of score a full score. In August Amon recorded an unknown amount of score. Then in mid January, 2015, much like North attending the premiere of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Harry attended and found something missing from the film: his story. I did not see Amon's name in a press junket I saw online with the film's credits (unless I missed it), suggesting none of his score was used. [Mike Dean; Ryan Amon (additional or full?); Kurt Mangum (additional, and keyboards and vocals); Harry Gregson-Williams (additional?), Philip Klein (additional for Gregson-Williams), Hybrid (Michael Truman, Chris Healings and Charlotte James, additional for Gregson-Williams); Atticus & Leopold Ross (additional?), Bobby Krlic (AKA: Haxan Cloak, additional for Ross).]
CHAPPIE -- Ryan Amon, Chris Clark and Rich Walters. According to the director in an interview, early on Amon created about 80 tracks to be tracked and edited as needed into the film; I don't know if these are the same tracks that were recorded with orchestra. One article online described the score as a fusion of classical music and organic synths, even using animal noises. INFO. [Hans Zimmer.]
DARK PLACES -- Gregory Tripi. In an interview conducted by Barry Lee Dejasu (December, 2014), Tripi made the comment on how the odd sound of the score:
"On my own projects, I play a lot of metallic instruments; I have a lot of things in the ideophone kind of category; hang-drum, tongue drum…a lot of metallic, harmonic percussion instruments. I like playing on those a lot; those feature pretty prominently on the DARK PLACES score, too."

"I played a lot of metallic instruments on it, like the hang drum and the Vadjraghanta drum—that’s a metal instrument from the Ukraine—and some tongue drums. I (also) played some guitar, an eBow guitar…you know, all these long, weird, tense-sounding, evolving notes."
He also said when he met with the producers and production company that they deined that they had hired and fired other composers on the film, that left not much time to score it (three weeks). There might still be samples HERE. The film was pushed back several months and at the time of the interview it had no U.S. distributor; presumably the film was cut up some and the distributor probably wanted a new score, when a U.S. distributor was found. In the end, some of Tripi's scores not only made it into the film, but he was also credited on the trailer and posters ( presumably the film, too) with B.T., a very rare thing indeed. INFO. [Brian Wayne Transeau (B.T.); Gregory Tripi (leftovers).]
THE FORGER -- Stephen Warbeck. Shown at the Toronto Film Festival with Warbeck's score, presumably when Saban Films picked the film for distribution they probably wanted a new score. INFO. [Robert Cairns.]
FREE FALL -- Bálint Szabó & Márton Kristóf (AKA: 12z). The duo released a CD titled The Free Fall Inspirations, with about 35 minutes of score on the Other People soundtrack label, which is presumably the actual score recorded for the film as they write on their BandCamp page for the album, "Created by Bálint Szabó and Márton Kristóf in March of 2014 for György Pálfi's Free Fall.". [Amon Tobin.]
JOY -- Danny Elfman. Interestingly enough, Elfman may not have been the first composer on board, as supposedly Giacchino might have been on board before him (likewise there may have been somebody after Elfman and before the composer dou). INFO. [David Campbell & West Dylan Thordson; Blake Mills (additional).]
THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE: "THE NEW WORLD" (Pilot) -- Brian Reitzell. INFO. [Henry Jackman & Dominic Lewis.]
RUN ALL NIGHT -- Alan Silvestri. INFO. [Junkie XL.]
THE WHISPERS: "X MARKS THE SPOT" (pilot) -- Conrad Pope. Pope scored the pilot back in 2014 right around when ABC picked the pilot up for a series, but in the end the pilot premiered in June, 2015, without Pope's score and with an extra director credited, suggesting changes were made to the pilot. INFO. [Robert Duncan.]
2016 (Click for start of list)
ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS: THE MOVIE -- Charlie Mole. In an interview conducted by Phillip Zonkel, Monaco states he got a call to replace a score, saying "I had 17 days to score the film, about 30 minutes of music". [Jake Monaco; Zach Robinson (additional).]
HACKSAW RIDGE -- John Debney. Sadly, this was a film James Horner was set to score before his death. In 2017 Debney posted a cue from his score on his SoundCloud page. INFO (pending). [Rupert Gregson-Williams; Anthony Clarke (additional), Evan Jolly (additional), and Steve Mazzaro (additional).]
THE LEGEND OF TARZAN -- Mario Grigorov. INFO. [Hans Zimmer & Rupert Gregson-Williams; Tony Clarke (additional), Thomas Farnon (additional), and Tom Howe (additional).]
SKYLANDERS ACADAMY: "SKYLANDERS UNITE!" (Pilot) -- Lorne Balfe. INFO. [Lukasz Pawel Buda, Samuel Scott & Conrad Wedde.] 2017
A WRINKLE IN TIME -- Jonny Greenwood. [Ramin Djawai.]
ALIEN: COVENANT -- Harry Gregson-Williams. [Jed Kurzel.]
BLADE RUNNER 2049 -- Johann Johannsson. If you've read this entire list until this entry, you've read a fair share of convoluted stories; well, get ready for another one. For what ever reason, Johann's score wasn't liked, but the decision was made to keep his theme with Wallfisch doing the bulk of the scoring and Zimmer contributing some additional music and synth design which he did inbetween hours while touring (starting in May, 2017), and to top it all off, Johann's theme is being kept and he still has a unknown involvement . Not only was Vangelis not asked, he said he didn't think he could do it anyway . In the end, reportedly, Johann only did some rough demos and not score proper for the film. In 2021 a Youtuber uploaded, with a win kand a nod and not directly verifying, what is supposed to be demo score by the composer. [Benjamin Wallfisch; Hans Zimmer (additional); Johann Johannsson (theme and leftovers).]
THE CURRENT WAR -- Dustin O'Halloran. To further complicate matters, the director's cut of the film features a score by Saunder Jurriaans and Danny Bensi. [Volker Bertelmann.
FLATLINERS -- Jacob Groth. Before the rejection, Groth wrote about the score on his Facebook page (very quickly taken down once the replacement was announced) that he was "creating a[n] exhilarating, terrifying and beautiful score" for the film. INFO. [Nathan Barr.]
GEOSTORM -- Pinar Toprak. [Lorne Balfe.]
GHOST IN THE SHELL -- Clint Mansell. INFO. [Lorne Bafle; Clint Mansell (leftovers).]
IRON SKY: THE COMING RACE -- Liabach. [Tuomas Kantelinen.]
JUSTICE LEAGUE -- Junkie XL. When Snyder backed out due to a suicide in the family, Joss whedon -- who directed some scenes -- took over; however, Whendon did not merely just pick up where Snyder left off, and extensive reshoots occured and the original composer was replaced. According to Junkie, this was his first rejected score. [Danny Elfman.]
THE SNOWMAN -- Jonny Greenwood. INFO. [Marco Beltrami.]
2018
BILLIONAIRE BOYS CLUB -- Joel J. Richard. [Edward Shearmur.]
CHRISTOPHER ROBIN -- Jon Brion. Originally hired to score the film after Jóhann Jóhannsson started scoring it but passed away, much of Brion's score was not used, although some cuts made the score CD. [Geoff Zanelli; Jon Brion (leftovers).]
HUNTER KILLER -- Dominic Lewis. A bootleg with the score is available. [Trevor Morros.]
KRYPTON (TV series) -- Bear McCreary. After recording an unknown number of episodes, Bear reportedly quit. INFO. [Pinar Toprak.]
THE NINTH PASSENGER -- ?????. Glasgow had ten days to do his score. [Scott Glasgow; Theron Kay (additional).]
PACIFIC RIM: UPRISING -- John Paesano. INFO. [Lorne Balfe.]
2019<
AD ASTRA --&nbps; Max Richter. Originally hired to score the film, Richter recorded a full score but later on Lorne Balfe was hired to replace it and recorded a full score of his own. However, like "White Fang", cues from both composers were used in the film (and Balfe gets an additional music credit). A 2CD seet was released that featured almost exclusively Richter's score. Thomas Newman was rumored to be the original composer chosen, but I have yet to find any confirmation on that. [Max Richter (leftovers); Lorne Balfe (leftovers); Max Aruj (additional), Sven Faulconer (additional), Nils Frahm (additional), Robert Charles Mann (additional), Steffen Thum (additional).]
2020
JAMES BOND: NO TIME TO DIE --&nbps; Dan Romer. [Hans Zimmers; Steve Mazzaro (additional).]
THE RHYTHM SECTION --&nbps; Jongnic Bontemps. [Steve Mazzaro; Lorne Balfe (additional), Lisa Gerrard (additional).] 2022
BRAHMASTRA PART ONE: SHIVA --&nbps; Simon Franglen. [Tanuj Tiku; Pritam Chakraborty; Mayur Hegde (additional).]
FIRST LOVE --&nbps; Richard Reed Parry. [George Kallis; Mayur Hegde (additional).] 2023
COCAINE BEAR --&nbps; Natalie Holt. [Mark Mothersbaugh; Albert Fox (additional), Tim Jones (additional), Richie Kohan (additional), John Enroth (additional), Alan Tyler (additional).]

Well, this new section was inevitable. As good as I am at finding stuff, sometimes I fail. But these are special failures, in that I know who was rejected ... but don't know the name of the film! Feel free to help fill in the gaps.

This list last updated: december 12, 2019 (Click to "jump" to title)
(?????, Clint Mansell.)

????? -- George Bassman. In an interview with another composer, the composer states Dankworth quite the scoring business in the early '70's after having a score replaced by a pop group. [?????.]
????? -- Quincy Jones. In an interview, Bill Perkins was on the subject of rejected scores, and while mentioning Bernstein, he said it has also happened to Jones. [?????.]
????? -- Danny Elfman. Someone stated, at the FSM board I believe, that they had attended something, and composer Philip Glass said Elfman had been rejected from a film recently. [?????.]
????? -- Rachel Portman. In a BBC News interview she mentions having a couple of rejected scores early on. Now, "Dangerous Beauty", isn't "early on"... [?????.]
????? -- Rachel Portman. In a BBC News interview she mentions having a couple of rejected scores early on. Now, "Dangerous Beauty", isn't "early on"... [?????.]
????? -- Marc Wilkinson. In an early May, 2013 interview at RunMovies.eu (since deleted from their site for unknown reasons), when asked if he had ever had a rejected score, he said he had one, but did not name it; saying he was blacklisted and didn't work for a while after that, but my search of his IMDb credits shows there were only about four or five years where he didn't work for one year. [?????.]
????? -- Hanz Zimmer. In an old interview, Zimmer says during his early career, he had a score rejected, then when a new producer (or director) was brought on board for trhe film, they put some of his score back in. In a late 2014 redit Q&A, Zimmer was asked about the skulls on his studio wall and he replied: "Each one signifies a discarded score". [?????.]
????? -- Andre Previn. In Previn's book, No Minor Chords, he briefly mentions having a score replaced by Goodwin. [Ron Goodwin.]
????? -- Leonard Rosenman. In a 1987 interview Rosenman stated he had had two scores rejected. Aside from THE LAST HARD MEN, the next known recorded rejected scores I have on him isn't until 1995, so there's a mystery out there. [?????.]
????? -- ?????. Ito posted online that he was replacing a composer who also helped finance the pilot. [Miles Ito.]
????? -- Cling Mansell. In a February 29, 2019 interview/commentary piece (conducted by Daniel Day Wray), Mansell states, "You can be mroe experimental on smaller films, but I jsut got fired from a mainstream film for being experimental," prefering not to name names, and also adding about the un-named film, "the director got locked out of the fucking edit suite.". [?????.]
????? -- Composer agent Beth Krakower said in a September 2, 2017 interview with Pop Disciple that she had to have a story redacted because when a poster for the un-named film was seen, the composer she represented, was not the name on the poster and said mystery composer had been fired for two weeks. And the composer who replaced him, "didn't end up writing the music for it". [?????.]

UN-USED

Sometimes a score is recorded, but is not used. The reasons for this vary: from the composer being unable to finish, to a scheduling conflict (forcing the composer to drop out), to a composer walking off the project -- therefore the score is unfinished and unusable, to anything else I couldn't think of. And one special case for "A Prayer for the Dying".
(The numbers by each title only reflect the count, not a list number)

This list last updated: May 16, 2018 (Click to "jump" to title)
(A Rose in Winter; 47 Ronin [also updated], Season of the Witch, mother!, Santa vs. the Snowman, Stigmata, Rocky Balboa, Dawn of the Dead, Apocalypse Now, The Client.)

1960

+FOLLOW THAT HORSE -- Bruce Montgomery. After recording some score, backed out (unknown reasons); studio ended up not using the cues. [Stanley Black.]
1977
+MARCH OR DIE -- David Shire. As Shire states in the interview I did with him, he had to bow out after getting stuck, but regrets it. [Maurice Jarre.]
1978
+DAWN OF THE DEAD -- Donald Rubinstein. A release of re-recorded concert versions of the score is in the works by Perserverance Records. [Goblin; Dario Argento (additional), Cliff Twemlow (additional), Don Harper (additional).]
1979
APOCALYPSE NOW -- Mickey Hart. As Hart has told before, especially at length on his site, he was asked to score the film (his score was not done in concordance with the other composers on the film), spending time watching the film over and over again until he was dreaming about it, in order to be there in the film's world, and made elaborate recording set-ups, rare, exotic, and unique musical instruments, and together with various members recorded a score that was somewhat improvisational (no word on whether he was before or after Shire). I have not seen an account of how much score he recorded, but the CD release of the score (which contained one more track than the LP), titled "The Apocalypse Now Sessions", contains just over 38 minutes. Only some of the score was used in the film. The "Redux" extended cut of the film reportedly has a little more of Hart's score tracked back in. Part of his music was layed into the cues "Nung River" and "Clean's Death". [Carmine Coppola & Francis Coppola; Randy Hansen (additional), Nyle Steiner (additional and performance), Pat Gleeson (at least one sole cue, and performance); Mickey Hart (leftovers), Ed Goldfarb (additional leftovers, with[?] Hart).]
1984
TENDER MERCIES -- George Dreyfus. The score was released on Dreyfus' Film Music Volume 2 CD. There was no replacement score; the director felt the film needed no music. [No score used.]
1986
NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER -- Frank Harris. Harris scored the film, but after recuts another composer was eventually needed. Harris' score should be available before year's end. [Paul Gilreath.]
NUKE 'EM HIGH -- Michael Perilstein. They directors hated what they had so much, they had someone else come in and reshoot and recut the film -- not bothering to tell Perilstein, who had sent in 90mins of score and got to the point where he told them either pay him (which they hadn't done) or don't use his score. [Ethan hurt & Michael Latlanzi.]
PLATOON -- Georges Delerue, R.I.P.. The director fell in love with Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" and ended up replacing all but one of Delerue's cues, with it; there is approximately 23 minutes of score on the Prometheus CD (paired with Delerue's other score for "Salvador") with the one cue used. The IMDb soundtrack section says Delerue arranged a version of "Adagio for Strings". Stone commented in a 2015 interview that he eventually had to tell Delerue to stop, since it just wasn't working. [No original score (songs and classical music); Georges Delerue (one leftover cue).]
1987
A PRAYER FOR THE DYING -- John Scott. Scott included 36:53 of his score on a CD from his own label, paired with the score to Winter People. Story on the Bill Conti CD art goes: Due to an unfortunate misunderstanding, film producer Peter Snell engaged the services of John Scott in England, not realizing that another composer, Bill Conti, had been contracted to write the score for this very same film in Hollywood.
Confusion came to light, John Scott had already finished the score and discovered that his music would not be used by the film company. Rather than waste the effort he went ahead and recorded the music on his own JOS Label. [Bill Conti.]
1988
+THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST -- Bruce Broughton. Broughton did a day's worth of recording, but for some reason they dropped him. FilmScoreMonthly.com did not include it because they did not get the rights to the scores, but rather just the original album material. Broughton's approach was to adapt classical pieces of music as the score (so no actual real scoring). [John Williams.]
SCROOGED -- Danny Elfman. Large portions of his original score were rejected and not used. Elfman was set to write a much longer score than what was recorded. Only about twenty-one minutes of what he did record made it into the film and was buried under heavy FX. In 2011, La La Land Records released the complete score. [Danny Elfman.]
1990
COLUMBO: "AGENDA FOR MURDER" -- David Michael Frank. Frank stated in THIS interview that most of the score was replaced, with Patrick McGoohan causing the trouble. [David Michael Frank (leftovers).]
DICK TRACY -- Danny Elfman. Elfman had several minutes of his score removed from the film and several other segments rescored at the last minute. Some of the deleted material, such as the theme for the character "Breathless" and an un-used passage for a montage sequence, can be found on the score album; in 2015 Intrada Records released the full score along with a good deal of un-used and alternate material. A famous quote from Danny Elfman on working with director Warren Beatty on Dick Tracy: "Warren was insane!" [Danny Elfman - CD.] (Special thanks to Dylan)
LOSER TAKES ALL (AKA: STRIKE IT RICH) -- John Dankworth. The director, James Scott, was very happy with the score from Dankworth -- whom he had requested. As is common practice, the studio took control of the film, re-edited it, re-titled it, and replaced Dankworth's fully recorded score. Star of the film actor Robert Lindsay said via multiple sources, including tweets on his Twitter page, that his career was halted after he confronted "Bully" Harvey Weinstein over sexual harassment allegations. He went on to further say, Harvey "had already fired the composer, the director and the editor and then he told us he didn't like Loser in the title because American's don't like losers, we want to call it Strike It Rich," and that Harvey "ruined the film, he made a mess of it." In the end, Lindsay came out the winner as his career continued while more and more disturbing and disgusting allegations about Harvey Weinstein keep coming to light and has kept him thankfully away from the industry. [Shirley Walker, Cliff Eidelman (additional or leftovers?).]
+MOON 44 -- Kuno Schmid. Schmid said he did about twenty minutes of score, but it was not used. Christopher Young came in next, but didn't do anything. [Joel Goldsmith.]
1994
+THE CLIENT -- James Newton Howard. After recording an unknown amount of score, he was offered "Wyatt Earp", which he thought was very special, and had to back out of scoring the film; as he stated in a late 2012 interview, Joel Schumacher hasn't spoken to him since. Early reports back then were that Hans Zimmer was scoring the film; presumably, since the two had been trying to find a film to work on together at that time, they were scoring it together. INFO. [Howard Shore.]
1995
JOHNNY MNEMONIC -- Mychael Danna. The film was originally much longer, and when Danna finished his score, he went overseas to teach children; while he was gone the film was being cut up and chopped up and generally messed with, and ended up being shorter and Danna's score couldn't fit anymore. But all that is for not, as FOX disliked Danna's score and weren't going to use it anyway. [Brad Fiedel.]
1997
SANTA VS. THE SNOWMAN -- Vern Nelson. When the short first aired on TV, it had a synth score by Nelson and narration by the writer, Steve Oedekerk, but in 2002 the short was spurced up, given new sound effects, narration, and new scenes were added including an opening, and it was re-scred by Cohen. [Harvey R. Cohen.]
+U TURN -- Richard Horowitz. Horowitz describes in an FSM interview that the director wouldn't send cuts out, so he had to compose with dailies and even up to scenes with seven different camera angels, and that the director was giving him little to no notes. [Ennio Morricone.]
1999
+MYSTERY MEN -- Stephen Warbeck. After completing his score, Warbeck had moved on and was not available when the film was recut-, some scenes reshoot, and special effects & scenes shot and added into the film; Walker came in and did the rescoring and new scores pieces, as well as redoing some scenes Warbeck had scored. INFO. [Stephen Warbeck (leftovers); Shirley Walker, R.I.P. (additional), Mark Mothersbaugh (additional; for whom, unknown).]
STIGMATA -- Billy Corgan. Despite the common word of a collaboration on the score, as Cmiral stated in an interview, he was brought in to do score for the film because Corgan wasn't cutting it for what ever reason. Corgan had been hired to score the film, after one of the producer's recommended him to the director, and when Cmiral was brought in, Corgan had first choice of what he would score, and Cmiral did the rest. In the end, even though Corgan did over 40 minutes of [electronic soundscape] score, he only has about nineteen left in the film, with the bulk being Cmiral's (45 to 50 minutes). [Elia Cmiral; Billy Corgan (leftovers).]
2000
+THE BOURNE IDENTITY -- Carter Burwell. Well, here is some INFO, replete with some orchestra players and a photos from a session! Man, I can't believe that what Burwell did wasn't good -- it had to be. How cool would it be to hear this score, huh? After recording a tiny bit over 20 minutes of score, the film went through some changes and by the time they needed to finish the score, Burwell was not available. The score consisted of about 75 players, synth, and atmospheric guitar, and was more melodic than Powell's effort. INFO. [John Powell, Joel J. Richard (additional), James McKee Smith (additional) - CD.]
MY DOG SKIP -- Van Dyke Parks. Vol. 4, No. 3 of FSM lists this in the "Upcoming Assignments" section. I e-mailed Mr. Parks and inquired. He said, according to the cue sheets, about 40% of his score is still left in the movie; not a rejection so much as the movie had a lot of re-editing and such and Parks wasn't available. [William Ross; Van Dyke Parks (leftovers).]
2002
+DRAGONFLY -- Christopher Young. Debney wound up scoring DRAGONFLY, Kevin Costner's moody supernatural thriller, when original composer Christopher Young had to drop out due to a schedule conflict. Debney came in at the last moment to helm the musical score: "Luckily, I was able to come up with a couple of melodic ideas that made everybody happy, so it was a quick three weeks!? Was surprised to see it mentioned on Young's official site, as "(incomplete score)"; for a second there I thought it was another "Costner" rejection.. [John Debney.]
GANGS OF NEW YORK -- Elmer Bernstein, R.I.P.. A early cut of the movie is around and rumored to feature Bernstein's score. On June 11, 2008 (three years after the rumor Varese was going to release it) -- a limited edition with two other rejected scores was released. INFO. Future CD (empty). Harvey Weinstein -- a notorious man here at this site -- didn't like the long running time of the film (over three hours) and kept editing it and the music for different screenings; Scorsese, not wanting to give up the film to Weinstein's hands, had to edit the film and ultimately Bernstein's score didn't fit any longer (that's why I moved it to "Un-used"); Scorsese did not want the score tossed. Scorsese commented a couple years later, "Harvey is a cunt.". [Howard Shore, Jocelyn Pook (one cue). - CD.]
2003
TIMELINE -- Jerry Goldsmith. Goldsmith was unavailable for rescoring, as the film was constantly re-edited. Varese Sarabande released the score. It is said he wrote about 80mins of score. Both CD-Rs. [Brian Tyler.]
2005
+A CHILD'S GAME (AKA: HIDE & SEEK) -- Christopher Young. Surprisingly enough, Young actually lists it on his official site, and as "(incomplete score)". In April 2008, Buysoundtrx Records released what I assume is all of the score Young did. Brief notes on the site say the film was pushed back and he wasn't availabe. This, of course, proves my theory that no matter the rejection -- or even if just demos -- if someone puts Young's stuff on CD, it will sell. INFO. [John Ottman - CD.]
TSOTSI -- Guy Farley. One of the film's producer's, against the director's expressed displeassure, decided to bring in Farley to do a replacement score. No one was happy about this and Farley's completed score was never used in any cut of the film when shown; when the film started winning awards and getting praise for the used score, there was no longer any justification for the producer to push Farley's score -- which was done even after the final mix of the film. For these reasons I cannot consider this a "rejected" score, but rather one that just simply couldn't be used and was never required by the director anyway; this is no knock against Farley's score, which hopefully we will hear one day. In an interview put online 9-3-08, Farley talks about what his score sounded like, and the potential to see it released on CD (read it HERE). In early 2014, Caldera Records premiered their new CD label with a release containing selections from the un-used score (with the CD mainly devoted to a new Farley score, "Secret Sharer"). INFO. [Mark Kilian & Paul Hapker - CD.]
2006
JESUS CAMP -- ?????. According to a book, the film had no direction and the composer did the score on his/her own, but complaints started arising, scenes were recut and the music edited and even redone, and eventually they just went with another score, leaving a mess of the first composer's unfinished work. ["Force Theory", Michael Furjanic, Neill Sanford Livingston.]
ROCKY BALBOA -- Bill Conti. In a 2008 interview conducted by Randall L. Larson, Conti stated he didn't want to tread over ground he had already done so he opted for a new score for the film. Then the film was previewed with his new original score and everyone was asking where the Rocky music was, and Sly's friends were asking it, too, so the decision was made to replace the score, and Conti re-recorded and re-arranged pieces from earlier Rocky films; neither the original un-used score nor the re-recording, have been released. [Bill Conti.]
2007
NO RESERVATIONS -- Philip Glass. Not technically a rejection, but most of his score was replaced by new cues and a couple pre-existing ones, and source music & songs, with not much of his score left in, but he is still on good terms with the director and will likely work with him again. [Philip Glass (leftovers).]
SAY IT IN RUSSIAN -- Vincent Gillioz. INFO. [Pinar Toprak.]
SUMMERCHILD (AKA: Kesan Lapsi) -- ?????. In an interview the director states she hired an Icelandic band, after hearing some of their instrumental electronic music on CD; they did some music, she didn't like it, they did some more, she eventually hired someone else. [Samuli Kosminen.]
TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNER CHRONICLES -- Blake Neely. With the events at Virginia Tech, the school shooting scene in the original pilot was cut and an actor or two being recast and this lead to a new score being needed, so Neely's couldn't be used. [Bear McCreary.]
2008
LOVE SICK: SECRETS OF A SEX ADDICT (TV movie) -- Peter Allen. I wasn't sure how to classify this, so I moved it here. Apparently an executive at Life Time, who was still new to the job, didn't like the score, but it was replaced on only one version of the film, everywhere else it was shown it had Allen's score. [Peter Allen; Zack Ryan (unknown version).]
+SMALL TOWN SATURDAY NIGHT -- Steve Dorff. Only did some of the film before whatever circumstances came about with the composer change, thus there wasn't really a whole score to use. The song "Someday Came Today" he did for the film, is still used and in the finale. [Steve Bertrand.]
2009
HAPPINESS RUNS -- Bobby Johnston. Did a score for the film, but after a year the film was recut and re-shot, even recast a little, and the score no longer fit, naturally. Johnston was asked to do a new score, but was tied up with other films at the time. [Reinhold Heil & Johnny Klimek.]
SEASON OF THE WITCH -- Aaryk Noctivagus. Noctivagus explains in a Vimeo video of the full incomplete score he did, that he was hired to be an extra in the climax of the film, but four days later got the gig as the composer. The film hit productions troubles and extensive re-shoots and re-working were done. He further says he had to leave the film in 2011 because of bad health, having waited two years for a locked picture. [Samuel Clarke.]
2013
47 RONIN -- Javier Navarrete. After disastrous test screening reviews, in order to "save" the film, the director, three producers, two top editors and Navarrete were fired. This was a case of no so much a rejected score as a score tossed to the way side while the film was radically re-edited, the script re-worked, and new scenes filmed (including expanding Keanu Reeves role). The music department of the studio was supportive and polite, but they just couldn’t act differently. Navarrete also replaced another composer (Atticus Ross; I don't know if he did anything). INFO. [Ilan Eshkeri.]
2017
mother! -- Jóhann Jóhannsson. In the press notes for the film release, Jóhannsson was quoted as saying he made the decision to eliminate the score entirely, as both he and the director felt the film was telling them it didn't need a score. [Jóhann Jóhannsson (as "Music And Sound Consultant").]
2018
A ROSE IN WINTER -- Ennio Morricone. Reportedly left the project because of the director's health, Morricone recorded an unknown amount of score in 2016. [Franco Piersanti.]

DEMOS

     Sometimes rejection comes before a score even makes it to the final scoring stage; it comes in the form of rejecting original demos. Demos are usually done by computer and feature synths. Some demos even go in front of a small orchestra.
     Demos are made to show the producer (or anyone else) what the composer can do, and even are used as temp tracks for early cuts of a film.

     This list features "demo" scores; scores that rejected before being recorded. It doesn't, however, list scores recorded but also demoed. Like Neff's "Never Cry Wolf" or Beltrami's "Texas Rangers".
(The numbers by each title only reflect the count, not a list number)

This list last updated: June 22, 2023 (Click to "jump" to title)
("Aliens vs. Predators" Beltrami listing updated.)

1969

GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS -- Andre Previn. Previn did a score, in demo form, along with songs supposedly done with his former wife, Dory Previn. According to FSM, who did a 3CD set of the Williams' score and songs and un-used songs, so many composers and song writers contributed to the film over it's extended production hell phase, that they could not possibly include everything; who knows who else did a score. [John Williams.]
1976
THE EXORCIST -- David Borden. In the spring of 1973 he received a phone call from Friedkin, who wanted to hire the synth group David was a part of (Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Company) to score the film; He waited until the film was shot to score it; this turned out to be the second filming of the story, as after the film was originally shot, it was lost in a fire. Friedkin called up Borden and said the film had turned out to be more melodramatic than he had anticipated and that he didn't want to use music that stood out on his own and decided to track it. However, he promised to hire him for his next film (which didn't happen). Still determined, Borden spent two hours composing, mixing and mastering three demos which he then mailed to Friedkin; days later Friedkin called and said he was going to use two of the demos for the film. United Artists paid a handsome sum of $2,000 for the music. Even though Borden said he could master the cues in better quality, Friedkin used them as is. Through legal mumbo jumbo, Borden did not receive any royalties for showings of the film inside the United States of America. The full story and more will be in a book called Sound Bites, by Borden; there is no tentative release date as the book is still being written. [then to Lalo Schifrin (rejected).]
1976
DOC SAVAGE: THE ARCH ENEMY OF EVIL -- Robert O. Ragland. A sequel to the first film, announced in the closing of the first film, that was written and then re-written but ultimately never happened as the first film flopped. The UCLA George Pal Papers collection contains this entry: "Reel tape, mono, 7 1/2 ips: a demo for the DOC SAVAGE sequel, by Robert O. Ragland: I. Dixieland (Bob Ragland's Band), II. Marches (arranged and conducted by Bob Ragland)."*nbsp; [FILM NOT MADE.]
1981
CLASH OF THE TITANS -- John Barry. Ray Harry Hausen has been quoted as (tersely) saying: "John Barry wrote a musical score for Clash of the Titans. We couldn't use it.". On December 18, 2019, the Ray Harryhausen Podcast on SoundCloud released a special that included some of the demos Barry recorded, which were discovered on a take in the Ray Harryhausen archive (assumed to be the only copy in existence); start times for the demos: 6:48 in ("Heroic 1"; not heard in full), 1:27:10 ("Andromeda"; not heard in full), 1:28:43 ("Persius Growing Up"; not heard in full), and 1:30:49 ("Scorpion"; not heard in full). Fifteen minutes of demos were done, recorded in August, 1980. [Laurence Rosenthal.]
1983
+THE RIGHT STUFF -- John Barry. In an old interview, Barry -- whose mind was fuzzy on the exact details -- recalls at least doing demos for the film (and back then it wasn't uncommon to do demos with an orchestra, I should note). Though supposedly his name is still retained in the end credits on some version(?). [Bill Conti; Todd Boekelheide, Garth Hudson, & Gary Chang (additional).]
1984
+2010: THE YEAR WE MAKE CONTACT -- Tony Banks. Now, the whole score has never been released, but one cue titled: "The Getaway" is on his Naxos label CD release "Seven: A Suite For Orchestra". He refers to it as "Sci fi film years ago" (which may be a new recording). He recycled some of the music into 1985 soundtrack "Starship", as well as "Lorca and the Outlaws". According to one Banks fansite, Banks did two hours of score, writing, and re-writing score cues to please the producers, but that it didn't work out (for anywhere from six months to year, depending on what source you read). INFO. [David Shire.]
MISUNDERSTOOD -- Maurice Gibb, R.I.P.. Originally I was prompted to search because SoundtrackCollector listed Jimmie Haskell as having a "rejected score". But, as I found out, that was really a blurred truth. I reached Mr. Haskell and he had this to say:
"I am the person who orchestrated a 'demo' 'audition' 'score' for only a couple of scenes of "Misunderstood", and I conducted a simple recording of a very small band just to get the musical concept heard by the producer & director. The composer was Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees. We had no instructions or guidance from the director or producer.
Based on what we submitted to them, the 'demo-audition' was not accepted, and neither one of us actually 'scored' the film.
Maurice was a brilliant new composer. Had he lived, he would developed into a greatly in-demand film composer. He composed an excellent score for "A Breed apart" for which he captured and enhanced the mood which each scene required.
I orchestrated for and conducted a medium/small orchestra for "A Breed Apart" because of the limited budget."

I also contacted replacement composer Michael Hoppe -- in hopes of answers (before I had reached Haskell), and he had stated the Bee Gees and Marvin Hamlisch were previously approached. [Michael Hoppe.]
+MAKING THE GRADE -- Edward David Zeliff. Originally Basil was asked, but turned the film down because the budget for the score was too small ($5,000). Passing on Danny Elfman, Zeliff was asked, but was given two weeks to write & record. After recording at least two or three demos on piano, he eventually learned the studio decided to pony up and when they did, Basil was re-asked. [Basil Poledouris.]
1985
+ONCE BITTEN -- John Barry. Barry wrote two demo themes, didn't get the job. Recycled them into Best Man In The World for Golden Child. [John Du Prez.] -- Special thanks to MightyMcT
1986
+THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR -- John Scott. Did several demos themes, but producers ended up not liking them. [Alan Silvestri.]
1987
PREDATOR -- Patrick Moraz. According to Moraz himsef in an old interview, he did "temporary cues"; this consisted of an original temporary score made by Morax for the film. [Alan Silvestri.]
1989
+STEEL MAGNOLIAS -- David Shire. On the DVD, the director, Herbert Ross, R.I.P., said he rejected the music of a "well known" composer. In my interview with him, I asked about it; see the "Interviews" page. Shire tells in the book David Shire's The Conversation: A Film Score Guide (Juan Chattah) that while hired by the director, he ended up under the supervising music editor's control as the director had gotten married and left for a two-month honeymoon. The un-named music editor didn't like the effort but being unable to reach the director, could help Shire change it. When the director returned, Shire was fired. Says Shire in the book, he wrote a letter pleading to do a new score, but it was too late. [Georges Delerue, R.I.P..]
1990
WILD ORCHID -- Patrick Moraz. Again, according to Moraz himsef in an old interview, he did "temporary cues". [Simon Goldenberg & Geoff MacCormack.]
1991
+FREDDY'S DEAD -- Graeme Revell. There is a boot going around with a few tracks; unknown whether he recorded an actual score. Maybe replacing someone himself. [Brian May.]
1992
+ENCINO MAN -- Jonathan Sheffer. After test audience, which was of studio personnel, Sheffer was left go; the score never got out of the demo pieces and what leftovers in the film are simply him playing on a synclavier. And so, not getting to an orchestra, this title is moved here. [J. Peter Robinson; Jonathan Sheffer (leftovers).]
1993
SLIVER -- Stewart Copeland. One cue on his promotional CD, From Rumble Fish to Gridlock'd; titled "Slithered" (3:03), every mention I find of this says "demo cue", so until someone says it's like "Mobsters", a rejected score by Copeland which has two cues on the promotional CD as well, it's in DEMOS. Copeland recycled what he did into his orchestra project "Stalin's Sultry Serenade". Shore had mere days to do a new score, eventually throwing his back out from writing. Click for "Mobsters". [Howard Shore; Christopher Young (additional, apart from Shore).]
1994
JIMMY CALICUT -- Danny Elfman. This was to be a live action musical written and directed by Danny Elfman for 20th Century Fox. For whatever reason, the deal fell through. Elfman was able to complete a demo recording of five of his songs to send to possible investors. In an interview, Elfman stated that the project was officially dead, but he went on saying that you never how dead something will stay in Hollywood. A bootleg of the demo is available in fair quality. [FILM NOT MADE (special thanks to Dylan).]
LITTLE DEMONS -- Danny Elfman. This was another live action musical project that Danny Elfman wrote and was set to direct. Tim Burton was set to produce. Somehow, the project collapsed and interested shyed away. Elfman did complete an impressive 17-minute demo recording that has been circulating from collector to collector for the past decade in bootleg form (with pretty decent sound). While the project isn't dead, it is owned by Disney, so unless they are bought out, we may never see it made. A review of the screenplay can be read HERE, and the demo can be listened to online HERE. [FILM NOT MADE (special thanks to Dylan).]
THE NET -- Richard Gibbs. After doing this synth score, it was decided he wasn't big enough of a name to score the film. [Mark Isham.]
+SQUANTO: A WARRIOR'S TALE -- Christopher Young. Listed on Young's official site as: "(incomplete score)", Young was on the film, but troubles in the production lead to mass firings, and Young was amongst those, before he could record any score. Maybe BuySoundtrax will tackel this one, one day like they did "A Child's Game". [Joel McNeely.]
1995
BABE -- Jerry Goldsmith. Dan Goldwasser of Soundtrack.net learned:
"Yeah, I was surprised when I heard that too, but it was Jerry himself sharing the story with us in the booth at the LOONEY TUNES scoring session. Apparently producer George Miller wanted the film to be SUPER dark, and Goldsmith's score wasn't meshing with what he wanted.... and the director kinda shifted sides and then Goldsmith walked."
He also said Goldsmith walked out mere weeks before the recording was to happen and that Jerry wrote 90% of the score AND that they cut a LOT of violent stuff from the film. While I had reported an old magazine said Goldsmith said he recorded it with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (they also did Nigel's score), the sessions were cancelled at the last minute and no score was recorded. [Nigel Westlake.]
+CUTTHROAT ISLAND -- David Arnold. Debney, I read, was hired to improve on Arnold's score. Arnold recents in a 2001 interview with Soundtrack! magazine that the director, Renny Harlin, would not let him see the film; at one point he had gone to an editing room to try and see it and he was escorted out; Harlin would instead send him long faxes telling him how the score should sound and the ideas he was coming up with were not pleasing Harlin. After seven or eight days, he made some calls to Harlin and they parted ways. Arnold was reportedly not the first composer on the film either, with the name Alan Silvestri was a name bandied as well. Debney's eventualy replacement score supposedly jump-started his acreer. [John Debney - complete score.]
1996
THE JUROR -- John Barry. In a 1996 FSM interview, Barry says he is working with director Brian Gibson on a film (at the time he called "Dura"); this is what Barry says about it:
I just came up with a movie called Dura, and I met with the director, Brian Gibson, and told him how I work. I would give him themes, and then I go off and work, and then go to Los Angeles, he's finished shooting, we spot the movie. I did a few things which he really liked a lot, and which Columbia liked. Then he said, "Well, what about the rest of the music?" and I said, "What about the rest of the music?" He said, "I want to hear it." I said, "This is not an audition, Brian. This is your second movie. If there's anything at the end of the day that you don't like, then we have a little session."
Of course this doesn't mean he didn't record the score, it's just all I know at this time. [James Newton Howard.]
+THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT -- John Debney. Did some original demos. [Alan Silvestri.]
+SGT. BILKO -- Brad Fiedel. The story is unclear: FSM reported Fiedel was taking over for Silvestri because of "scheduling conflicts", but that ultimately proved to be untrue since Silvestri did score the film; to further complicate matters, Mr. Fiedel is unaware of Silvestri being on first, and the director hired him personally. Fiedel did a few rough demos and nothing more, before conflicts between the director and producers arose. [Alan Silvestri.]
1997
+BLISS -- John Barry. Barry recorded some violin pieces that were played on set while filming, but a scheduling problem led to him being unable to do the score in the end. [Jan AP Kaczmarek.]
+FACE/OFF -- Mark Isham. Isham had finished almost 2/3 of his electronica-style score when he was fired by director John Woo. About Powell's score Isham doesn't say much except that "it is quite different from what I had done.". Only done in demos form, never recorded with an orchestra. INFO (coming soon). [John Powell, Gavin Greenway (additional), Geoff Zanelli (additional).]
+MOUSE HUNT -- Bruce Fowler. While none of his score actually got recorded (though some source scoring was), an arrangement of the song "I'll Be Home For Christmas" Fowler did, is still in the film (and he's credited). [Alan Silvestri.]
+WATERWORLD -- Mark Isham. Various comments about a recorded score, where completely inaccurate. INFO. [James Newton Howard - CD.]
1998
+EVER AFTER -- John Barry. Wrote a theme as a demo, which was rejected. [George Fenton.]
+THE HORSE WHISPERER -- John Barry, R.I.P.. Barry is rumored to have reused some of his Horse Whisperer material on his album The Beyondness of Things, supposedly track 12 on the CD. FSM had a poll once on which Barry scores should be released and Barry's score got: 29 votes (0.6%). Polydor Records was set to release his score, but it fizzled out with the rejection, and because the score was not recorded; Barry went to New York and with some players, recorded some demo cues. In mid 2016 Richard Kraft, who represented Barry later in his career, posted on his Facebook page a long post remembering Barry and during his stories he had gotten Barry hired on the film before it even began shooting; Barry recorded said demos, sent them to the director, but the director was out of communication during filming and thus could not give feedback and by the time he could, Barry was "too raw to take his input" and the whole thing fell apart (no further explination is given). [Thomas Newman - CD.]
1999
A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT DREAM -- Wojciech Kilar. Hired after Morricone's unknown involvement, Kilar recorded some piano demos, but ended up being replaced. Over at MMUK (MovieMusicUK.us), a funny little story was told:
Simon Boswell once told me a great story about Kilar and the Kevin Kline/Michelle Pfeiffer Midsummer Night's Dream movie - Kilar was originally hired to score it, but when he went for a meeting with the director, Kilar apparently dropped a whole load of his previous score manuscripts on the desk and said "there's your score - which bits do you want in it?" Kilar was fired, Boswell was hired.

When Boswell was driving to Skywalker Sound to do the mixing session, apparently there were a whole load of buzzards, or birds of prey, or something, circling around in the distance, and he turned to Terry Davies (who was in the car with him) and said "Do you reckong that's where they buried Wojciech...?"
. [Simon Boswell.]
+THE END OF THE AFFAIR -- John Barry. Barry did a demo theme for Neil Jordan's movie which he later reworked for his non-score album "Eternal Echoes". [Michael Nyman - CD.]
2000
CHICKEN RUN -- Julian Nott. Supposedly Zimmer, sadly now the head of Dreamworks Music Department, pressured Nott to use some of his MV cronies. Nott refused and said his score was ready anyway; this apparently pissed Zimmer off, and the director called Nott a few days later to tell him Dreamworks would offer him a lot more money for the score recording if he used Zimmer's guys. Nott's score (unknown whether recorded), was used as a temp track. Nott, reportedly, was hurt. Nott is most famous for his scores to the "Wallace & Gromit" clay animation shorts. [Harry Gregson-Williams, Steven Jablonsky (additional), James McKee Smith (additional), Geoff Zanelli (additional), John Powell, Alastair King (additional). - CD + cues on various promos not on the official CD.]
+THE PATRIOT -- David Arnold. Arnold wrote & recorded hand full of original demos with a real, full orchestra (on top of writing a full score). Arnold was hired early on, as one of the producers (Dean Devlin) had wanted to work on a project with him again. Arnold says, in a 2001 interview with Soundtrack! magazine that budgetary problems from going over budget, started to lead to some uneasiness and he was asked if he still wanted to do it and eventually was asked to submit demos first (which had not previously happened in their collaborations). Meanwhile one of the other producers whom had worked with Williams, was telling everybody they could get Williams and the studio put out calls to Williams and Horner. Arnodl says he sent them the demo and almsot immediately that day, they came back and said it wasn't working out and that they were getting Williams; Arnold speculates there must have been more going on behind the scenes for this to have happened so quickly. He also said the demo he sent, was one of the best thigns he had ever done, though he didn't feel insulted Williams was the final composer. INFO (coming). [Harold Kloser.]
THE PATRIOT -- Harold Kloser. In an interview he said he did some, but Roland didn't like them. [John Williams - CD.]
+REINDEER GAMES -- Jerry K. Goldsmith, R.I.P.. Recorded original demos only. It is reported by Dan of soundtrack.net that it sounds like "Rudy". Someone else -- I forget who -- wrote that Jerrald's synth score was still in the first three screenings. Goldsmith quit. [Alan Silvestri - few boots.]
2001
BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF -- Kenji Kawai. Composed some original demos, but didn't up scoring the film. [Joseph LoDuca.]
2002
EQUILIBRIUM -- Graeme Revell. Don't know if he recorded anything though. The film's director said he had a "prominent" composer doing the score, but it didn't work out, and as much I enjoy some of Revell's work, I just don't think he was the "prominent" guy, and that he also has a reputation for replacing scores, so... [Klaus Badelt, Ramin Djawadi (additional), Geoff Zanelli (additional).]
+THE GATHERING STORM (TV movie) -- Trevor Jones. Jones provided demos based on selected Vaughn Williams pieces, but they were not liked; he then did new demos in a different style, but again the director did not like them, and with time being an issue (and Jones stating he might not finish since he was doing "Dinotopia"), they found a new composer. [Howard Goodall.]
THE KID -- Jerry Goldsmith, R.I.P.. Nearly complete score of synth mockups; never got to a scoring stage. INFO (pending). [Marc Shaiman, Frank Gari (additional).]
2003
+PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN -- Alan Silvestri. No. He didn't record anything. Early test screening prints had the new composer's score. He did original demos though, though possibly just one, as in a 2016 interview with Film Music Media Silvestri stated he didn't get passed 1m1. Gore and Jerry were not happy with flutes, they passed along their displeasure by telling the MV composers not to write any woodwind flourishes that you would associate with a traditional pirate score. So, in other words, Silvestri wanted to give us a masterpiece and Jerry didn't want it. In a 2013 interview with Steve Jablonsky, Jablonsky stated he heard the stuff Silvestri was going and thought it was great, implying there was more than just one demo cue. INFO. [The composers who did score the movie: Hans Zimmer, Geoff Zanelli (additional), Blake Neely(additional), James McKee Smith (additional), Steve Jablonsky (additional), Nick Glennie-Smith (additional), James Michael Dooley (additional), Ramin Djawadi (additional), Klaus Badelt & Trevor Morris (additional). WHEW!.]
2004
ALIENS VS. PREDATOR -- Mark Mancina. Old news was Mancina had possibly done a score. [Marco Beltrami.]
ALIENS VS. PREDATOR -- Marco Beltrami. As someone wrote in a moviemusic.com post:
"Well, here's a quote from the book "Beautiful Monsters", by David McIntee, which is a very detailed history of the making of the Alien and Predator films.
"The music was originally slated to by scored by Marco Beltrami, but his score was eventually rejected. The rejection of a completed score isn't as unusual as you might think: it happens fairly often. Used in place of Beltrami's work was a score by Harold Kloser, commissioned in late March, 2004.' "

However, in a 2023 interview when asked about this score, Beltrami said he did not do one. Remember: Just because it is in a book, doesn't mean its true! [Harold Kloser, Thomas Wanker (additional), James Brett (additional), Thomas Schobel (additional).]
+THE EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING -- Finn Tuomas Kantelinen. Did original demos, but they decided not to use him. [Trevor Rabin.]
+I, ROBOT -- Trevor Jones. It came to light he did a number of demos, and this (I don't know how accurate it is): his previous agent, David May, said Jones was hurt by his score being replaced. Why would he be so upset over nothing being recorded, as Jones said he couldn't score two films at once, and the conflict came with "Around the World In 80 Days. [Marco Beltrami and others.]
THE IDIOCY VICE -- Edward Lewis. Yes, a second time. Lewis did a few rough demos, but then just seemed to vanish of the face of the Earth. A new composer is still needed (5-17-05). [The 5 or 6 cues in the finished movie were composed by the following three composers: Mark Stephens, Rory Cameron and Craig Beedham.]
+THE INCREDIBLES -- John Barry. Barry recorded several demo cues. In mid 2016 Richard Kraft, who represented Barry later in his career, posted on his Facebook page a long post remembering Barry and during the story he told that Brad Bird had called and asked for Barry; Bird had wanted a James Bond-like score and he and Barry were hitting it off. Barry flew out with some recorded demos; there was no Bond action music. Bird didn't want to give uyp, but Barry was not accustomed to the sketch board scenes of Dash that were sent to him, and wanted to quit the film. Not wanting to give up on him, Bird suggested Barry do some kye themes for the film and they'll hire Giacchino to work out the score; the demos were slow and again not like Bond. Kraft and Bird then temped the trailer with Bond music to give Barry a better idea and then Barry turned in a new demo; Kraft and Bird loved it and only suggested changing a few notes that sounded like cowboy music. With that, Barry quit. Michael Kamen was also intended to score the film, but he passed away before that happened. [Michael Giacchino.]
+PAPARAZZI -- Mark Isham. Did a few demos, but had to leave for another project. [Brian Tyler.]
TRICKERY OF TRAVELERS -- David Wester. As written by the film's creator:
"The situation with the music completely falls apart and to make a long story short, replacement composer Rachel Hamilton is brought in to write the music. I send her a disc of QuickTime files and she begins writing demos."

Hamilton, as you can hear by her clips, relies heavily on the theremin. [Rachel Hamilton.]
2005
ALATRISTE -- Diego Navarro. [Alfons Conde.]
+ALATRISTE -- Alfons Conde. Did a demo, which he posted at his website, HERE. (Howard Shore never did). [Roque Banos - CD.]
+CONSTANTINE -- Lisa Gerrard. Not so much a rejection, or a un-used score. Though she didn't see the film, she put together a ten-minute suite to show what she could do, and it was used as some temp tracking, but she was not ever hired. At her official site, lisagerrard.com, it was mentioned in a forum post that they are considering releasing it to subscription members. The cue "Towards the Tower" on her album The Silver Tree is supposed to either be an excerpt, or based on the demo suite. [Brian Tyler, Klaus Badelt (additional reworkings).]
ALL THE KINGS MEN -- Edward Shearmur. [James Horner.]
RYNA -- ?????. Said in an interview a composer was hired, but the music just didn't "add" anything to the film's characters. [No original score.]
SERENITY -- Carter Burwell. Now, you know he said he was fired before recording was going to begin on February that year, but Joss Whedon has a different say:
"The movie as I first described it and the movie as it turned out were kind of different, the needs of the score different as well. Carter did some great work, really interesting, but in the end my two friends didn't end up dating."

Original Demos. [David Newman.]
2006
+BLACK CHRISTMAS -- Vince Lauria. Film editor liked his demos and put it to the film, but ultimately decided to go with Walker. This was, coincidently, Walker's last score before passing. [Shirley Walker, R.I.P..]
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES -- Marco Beltrami. Beltrami, in an e-mail reply to someone else, said his score was very good. The recording sessions were to take place in early December, but he was replaced. He said he hopes he can put clips up on his site (yeah, that'll happen). [Klaus Badelt & the Zimmer-ites.]
X-MEN 3: THE FINAL STAND -- Lalo Schifrin. Did some demos; didn't get the job for whatever reason. The producers did know he was ... LALO SCHIFRIN, right? [John Powell, James McKee Smith (additional), and some other guys - CD.]
2007
+THE LOOKOUT -- ?????. As composer Carlos Rafael Rivera explained in a December, 2014 interview, before J.N.H. was onboard, another composer was providing an original demo and Carlos was providing guitar on said demo. Carlos also explained he himself was asked to created some music for scenes in the script. J.N.H. was onboard at least in the middle of 2006. [James Newton Howard; Clay Duncan (additional), Stuart M. Thomas (additional).]
2008
+ANGUS, THONGS AND FULL FRONTAL SNOGGING -- Michael Price. Did a few demos along with David Arnold (who I assume just provided a theme like on "Agent Crush"), but they decided to go with another composer. [Joby Talbot.]
BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE -- Marcus Trumpp. Stated he liked what he did for the film, but that doesn't mean he recorded anything (though he could have; feel free to tell me if you know). [Clint Mansell, Guillaume Roussel (additional).]
+CROSSING OVER -- John Murphy. John Barry turned down the film twice -- wise move, if you've read the reviews... In 2014 after some delay, Murphy released a CD of score newly arranged and finished for the film (as the score had not been finished), as Anon: Annonymous Rejected Filmscore, since legally he could not name the film. But in a August 16, 2014 Facebook post he gave enough information to pin the title down, which had been rumored to be this film anyway, saying: "'ANO' is the soundtrack album based on a film score I had thrown out five or six years ago. And even though the score hit the cutting room floor, I always felt it was one of my better, more original efforts. In my head it became the 'lost score'. The score without a film. Years later the idea came to me to go back and finish ... the way it originally sounded in my head. And that's what I did.". He went on to say in another interview that he was gutted at the rejection and it was even worse because he hadn't gotten out of the demo stage yet. INFO. [Mark Isham.]
+KNUCKLE DRAGGERS -- Dean Ogden. Didn't see eye-to-eye on the music and parted way after doing some themes. [Austin Wintory.]
+THE LONGSHOTS -- John Swihart. So late in the game, that no news was made on Castelucci scoring it, and some reviews of the film mentioned Swihart; Swihart did some demos cues, but never recorded. INFO (pending). [Teddy Castellucci.]
+NOWHERELAND -- Theodore Shapiro. Didn't like the demos he did, and went another way. [Mark Mancina.]
2009
+HACHIKO: A DOG'S STORY -- Christopher Young. Did some demos, a while after Kaczmarek's score had been recorded. [Jan AP Kaczmarek.]
LIVE EVIL -- Jay Woelfel. The director (also a composer himself) explained on his website he composed a rough temporary score, but once the film was going into post production, another composer was hired. Parts of the new score were not liked, so they ended up using some of the rough temporary score in the film. Woelfel was also not the first director on the film. [Austin Wintory; Jay Woelfel (leftovers).]
2010
+KICK-ASS -- Christopher Lennertz. Recorded a 12 minute demo piece. INFO (pending). [Don't know where he fell inbetween the first three rejected scores.]
+THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT -- Wendy Melvoin & Lisa Coleman. Were doing the score and had done a sessions, but the film was suddenly pushed into full-throttle to meet, as replacement composer Craig Wedren stated, a "secret" Sundance premiere. They called Wedren themselves and he took some of their ideas from the sessions and "ran" with them, as he states. [Craig Wedren & Nathan Larson (rejected), then Carter Burwell.]
+LITTLE SISTERS -- Robert Ellis-Geiger. The score was about 90% done with sophisticated and detailed demos, but for change in composer. [Robert Miller.]
+RED -- David Holmes. Only did some demos, and did not get to the recording phase. [Christophe Beck; Mark Killian (additional).]
+THE THING -- Aaron Zigman. Did some demos; don't know if he recorded any score. [Marco Beltrami.]
2011
+LOL -- David Newman. Did some demos, but stuff happened right before recording. [Rob Simonson.]
+THE IRON LADY -- Clint Mansell. Did about 30% of the score in demo form, before what ever circumstances lead to the change. [Thomas Newman.]
THE WOMAN IN BLACK -- David Julyan. Did the entire score in demo form, but the film was aquired for distribution by a studio who wanted a change. INFO. [Marco Beltrami.]
2012
I, ANNA -- Christopher Slaski. On January 23, 2015, Quartet Records released a compilation of works by the composer and included is a Film Noir Suite, made up his his rejected score to the film. Slaski explained in a 2016 Soundtrack! online interview that he did mock ups of his score and that two weeks before it was to record at Abbey Road, he recieved a phone call from the producer who apologized and said they were going with something closer to the temp track. He also said he re-worked one of his cues into his score to the 2017 film "A Good American". [David Braud (as "k.i.d.").]
+PARADISE LOST -- Marco Beltrami. I'm guessing at the intended release year, as this film ended up not being made. To have been directed by Alex Proyas, Beltrami provided some demo cues which, as one Film Score Monthly user described them: "I've had a chance to hear Beltrami's choral and vocal recordings when he was experimenting for Paradise Lost before it was axed. Amazing stuff." [FILM NOT MADE.]
2013
+FUN SIZE -- Lyle Workman. A busy schedule on other projects in the end, before the recording phase of the score, prevented Mr. Workman from scoring the film after the film's shooting went into hiatus from director having a baby. The mock-up demo score was orchestral, and mixed with small ensemble rock/pop. Still credited with two songs, as he was also providing some songs originally. INFO. [Deborah Lurie; Kevin McKeever (additional).]
GODS BEHAVING BADLY -- George S. Clinton. Clinton did an entire synth score for the film and was set to record but delays in the film conflicted with his new job at Berklee College of Music, forcing him to bow out. INFO. [Christopher Young.]
+RUNNER, RUNNER -- Chris Hajian. INFO. [Christophe Beck.]
2015
+ANT-MAN -- Steve Price. In an October, 2014 interview with Collider.com, Price stated when his friend, director Edgar Wright, dropped out of directing the film, he felt it was wrong to continue on the film and dropped out as well after doing some pieces he said were "doing bits and it was ever so exciting". [Christophe Beck.]
2018
STAR TREK: DISCOVERY -- Cliff Eidelman. Amongst a number of compsoers who were either asked to submit demos or submitted demos of their own accord. Approached by Fuller to potentially be the composer for the show. Eidelman made some demos, which he later released on iTunes (as "Into the Unknown"; my host provider blocks links to the Apple website). [then to who knows who.]
STAR TREK: DISCOVERY -- Austin Wintory. Mr. Wintory explains in an interview with TrekMovie that he paid for an orchestra to record a demo theme to get his hat into the ring as a potential composer, whoever, another composer was hired. then months later he was contacted and told the composer hired (not named) was not working out. He did three demos in the end but Fuller left the show and the new team did not pick Wintory. [Jeff Russo (presumably next).] 2021
THE SUICIDE SQUAD -- Tyler Bates. Bates did some pre-recorded material but for what ever reason, left the film. [John Murphy.]

MYTHS

There is a lot of distortion on the web, and as a result I would get a fair number of e-mails about one particular score ("Hulk"). That gave birth to this section. Whether they were not recorded (thus not rejected); scores that never made it to the scoring studio, never got demos (at least not known to), composers who were not rejected but rather someone came in and did a few replacement cues, or instances where composers never even wrote a score. Below is an alphabetical list.

This list last updated: July 2, 2006 (Click to "jump"to title)
(The Beast Within [again].)

THE BEAST WITHIN -- Joel Goldsmith. Well, in an interview Jerry said he was going to score it, and SoundtrackCollector.com lists "score not used". But I asked over at Joel's official message board, and no -- Joel never did a thing. Do you people think you can stop making up composers for "The Best Within" now, if it's not too much to ask... [Les Baxter.]
THE BEAST WITHIN -- James Horner. This is mostly Les Baxter's score, out of order, with bad sound. The only Horner material is the 14 min. of The Hand and the main title of Wolfen at the very end. Horner never wrote a note. [Copied from Majestyx's Fake Scores List.]
CONSTANTINE -- Brian Tyler. Klaus Badelt only replaced some cues, and added to others or reworked them. [Still Tyler.]
FROM HELL -- Marilyn Manson. His "score" was thrown out, along with his songs, but a CD release of the "From Hell" soundtrack in some country still features a remix of one of the un-used songs. But someone e-mailed me telling me otherwise and now it's here. [Trevor Jones.]
THE HULK -- People for some reason think he did it even though Danna stated he didn't in a few interviews. Here for your eyes are my remembrances of what he said: He recorded samples of eastern instrument sounds and did some synth mock-ups (there were a number of these instrument sessions), but the studio heard them and got worried and dumped him because they are scared pussies and went for Elfman; as if he hasn't had his fill of superhero films. Oh, and Danna was fired before the scheduled recording sessions. So hopefully that will shut you all up. ;-) And to any of you that want to cite the "Mother's theme" that Danna is credited for in the end credits of the film, it goes like this -- and this is from Elfman's mouth: he got all the ethic music samples and vocals Danna has recorded to use in his score, and Elfman liked a piece sung by Natasha Atlas, using a theme done by Danna that was going to be in Danna's score; Elfman used the vocal recording, keeping the first four notes of Danna's, then went into his own. [Danny Elfman.]
THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES -- Jeff Rona. A "promo CD-R" is floating around, but when you click HERE, you can read a short Q & A Rona did and he says he didn't have a rejected score. What is this then? I need a copy so I can send it to Rona and get a final answer, then I'll be able to remove it, or rename the composer. [Tom Hajdu, Andy Milburn (did most of the work) and Jeff Rona.]
REMEMBER THE TITANS -- John Debney. Nope, fooled again. He did put together a CD of various cues from other movies he had scored, for this "DEMO" like CD. [Trevor Rabin.]
SEABISCUIT -- Randy Newman. A rumor seems to have spread all over that William Ross came in and replaced a lot of rejected score. Not so, according to Ross himself. Now there have been conflicts as to why Newman left, but Ross came in and did a little, tiny bit of score after Newman left. [Randy Newman; William Ross (additional), Conrad Pope (additional).]
X-MEN -- Klaus Badelt. Well, two promo CDs feature one cue for "X-Men", now whether that is the same cue on both CDs, I don't know. And a rumor is that Singer disliked Kamen's score and had it tossed for a new one that was less thematic in approach. Kamen called Badelt and asked his help on "X-Men". Badelt was very happy with the collaboration and this is probably further proof that Kamen's initial score was rejected and thus needed help to finish the new one. [Michael Kamen, R.I.P.]

MOST REJECTED: 1st place: John Barry
2nd place: Elmer Bernstein
3rd place: Jerry Goldsmith

This is in no way a reflection upon their abilities, but rather a statistic

Van Alexander: "But I remember what film composer David Raksin once said: 'You're not a full-fledged screen composer until you've had a score thrown out of a picture'."

This site created and maintained by Justin Boggan.
ESTABLISHED: February 2004