The Movie Composer Behind Interstellar and Gladiator Is Selling Out Arenas
Over the course of his prolific career, Hans Zimmer has composed music for more than 150 films, ranging from Dune to Gladiator to Pirates of the Caribbean. As a result, an individual’s transformation from casual filmgoer to zealous Zimmer superfan can progress along any number of cinematic routes. But often the roots can be traced back to one particular movie soundtrack, or even one particular song.
For Stacey MacNaught it happened during a car ride with one of her children.
One day, she was driving her son back from soccer practice, listening to Time, a poignant, complex instrumental number that Zimmer composed for the 2010 sci-fi flick Inception, directed by Christopher Nolan. At one point, seven-year-old Oliver lifted up his arm and showed it to his mom. It was covered in goosebumps. “Look, the music did that,” he told her.
He’s been “a bit obsessed,” ever since, MacNaught said.
Naturally, when it came time for MacNaught to take her son to his first live concert there was no doubt who they would see. Earlier this month, MacNaught surprised Oliver with tickets for Zimmer’s stage performance at the AO Arena in Manchester. The setlist that night ended up including songs from Wonder Woman 1984, Top Gun: Maverick and The Dark Knight.
Their mother-son adventure to see the German composer perform in person put them in good company. For the past two months, Zimmer has been selling out shows across Europe.
Along the way, the adoring crowds in places like Spain, Slovakia and Germany have catapulted Zimmer into the top 25 touring artists on the latest Bloomberg Pop Star Power Rankings. In May, he sold 101,255 tickets, according to data from Pollstar, accounting for $10,531,521 in gross revenue, making his tour one of the month’s biggest.
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Zimmer’s show isn’t what you might imagine. He travels with a 38-piece orchestra and band, dazzling lights, a gigantic disco ball and two large screens, showing not just band members at work but also imagery connected to the films, and he himself interjects between tracks with various behind-the-scenes stories. There are also occasional surprise flourishes. During a performance in London, Zimmer proposed to his partner onstage.
“The show was mind-blowing,” said Ahmed Taha, a fan who first fell for Zimmer’s music thanks to the movie Interstellar. “The way they cut between the musicians, the transitions between them, it is really well done visually.”
Zimmer is among the pantheon of top film composers who are reaching new generations of fans, in part, by adapting their works to the stage and heading out on the road.
Last year, American film composer Danny Elfman played Coachella shirtless and rocked out to tracks from Edward Scissorhands and The Simpsons’ theme song, both of which he wrote.
At first blush, the notion that composers best known for their screen scores could also sell out major arenas can seem a little far-fetched. But Phil Hope, founder and partner of Multimedia Music, an acquirer of film and TV music rights, said he is not surprised.
“I think it’s a mixture of the top film composers really being the popular classical music artists of today,” he wrote in an emailed comment. “And that many of them now come from an original background of being in bands, which gives them an additional flair for showmanship and a love of a live audience.”
Zimmer got his start playing with the band The Buggles, which was the first group to air a music video on MTV (trivia alert: It was Video Killed The Radio Star).
The live success is also translating to streaming. On Spotify, Zimmer maintains over 9 million monthly listeners while Elfman reaches over 2 million. For his part, prolific movie composer John Williams (Star Wars, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park) has over 4 million.
In 2024, Zimmer will tour across Europe again. After seeing the show in Manchester, MacNaught said she’s already bought tickets for her and Oliver for next year.
These days, MacNaught frequently listens to Zimmer’s soundtracks not only while in the car but also while focusing at work and while preparing to go to sleep.
“Even if a movie is a bit crap, if he’s composed it, I’ll still listen to the score,” she said.