Earlier this year we reported that regular Ridley Scott collaborator Harry Gregson-Williams would be scoring Alien: Covenant. However, having been removed from the credits on IMDB earlier this week, some fans took to Facebook to ask Harry Gregson-Williams if he was still scoring Alien: Covenant. Last night Gregson-Williams responded to one of those inquiries to break the bad news.
Harry Gregson-William confirms he is no longer working on Alien: Covenant.
The composer provided no further details and no other outlet appears to be covering this yet so the reasons for Harry Gregson-Williams’ departure is unknown. This development is a bit of a surprise as we already know that the score was being recorded as of the end of September as confirmed on Facebook.
At the least, the orchestral textures and soundscapes were being recorded at the appropriately designed Alvernia Studios in Poland.
Alvernia Studios is furnished with a metal Alien statue and very Giger-esque designs throughout the building. Photo by Alexander Belenkly.
Hopefully we’ll find out more about the sudden change and who will be replacing Harry Gregson-Williams soon. Thanks to Darkoo for the heads up.
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Update 03/11/2016 – Replying to a query as to why he had exited Alien: Covenant, Harry Gregson-Williams provided the following comment: “Schedules and one’s expectations of scoring a film don’t always fit and this one wasn’t going to work out. I move on to another project with gratitude to have worked on many movies with Ridley Scott where the moons did indeed align and I had the chance to burrow in to the core of the project.”
HGW says project not projects. He also adds that he had a chance to burrow in to the core of it. Sounds enigmatic for me
Does it mean he scored something? Looks like.
This girl is Assistant Music Editor for Covenant
she is working from September, perhaps someone
could ask her about current situation. Dont know
if her NDA forbids her to speak about that.
Fassie said Scott already has a cut of the film, right. So maybe this cut is his (hard R-rated version), and the studio is making him reshoot so its not so violent hence why Williams can't score the movie. ( if reshoot rumors are true) Now does that mean that there will be two cuts of the film??
pleased with Harry's score and fired him... easy as that. Maybe Ridley
found another composer willing to score Covenant... maybe its just
schedule issue... there are tons of reasons.
I assume someone took this quote way out of context:
"one's expectations of scoring a film don't always fit"
And looking at some of the absolute shit he has scored ("Total Recall 2012, Cowboy's and Aliens), that movie would have to be the absolute shits for him to turn it down. Of note though, The only movie on his entire resume that even eludes to horror is Prometheus. THIS IS WILD SPECULATION: Maybe he doesn't want to be associated with something as gory as this film is looking to be? The Backbuster scene isn't going to be pretty. Depending on how he works, he might not want to be subject to that amount of gore repeatedly. WILD SPECULATION ENDS.
And some more lulz:
Wasn't me, honest Corporal!
"Harry Gregson-Williams has been selected as the film's composer,[46] but confirmed he's no longer involved in scoring the movie. Inside chatter suggests he was unhappy with the film as a whole and wanted out.[47]"
Through PR.
I'm pretty sure that if it involved creative differences then he'd just come out and say it, it's fairly common practice these days. Scheduling issues could also mean personal life events, not just work. He may have had projects he was supposed to have finished that ended up boiling over into the time he'd need to set aside for Covenant, or commitments which he didn't think would impact his work that ended up doing so.
I'm curious on how you were going to contrive that.
Exactly. New Blade Runner, Star Wars and Alien:Covenant are the most anticipated Sci-Fi movies of 2017. I don't buy this schedule thing. Smells fishy to me. Especially when HGW says: "(...) one's expectations of scoring a film don't always fit". Whose expectations? His? Ridley's? Fox's? Strange.
Thanks Corp.
Certainly seems like! Now...
I await the news of who is taking over the reins!
HGW provided an update:
Does "good" mean better than Prometheus?
I learnt a while back that they'd shown an early cut of the film to some of the shakers and movers at Fox and the reception had been good.
Fingers crossed. Have you seen early screenings?
They'll be using a temp score at the minute too so it's unlikely to be a reaction to any score in the screening.
Fair enough mate, sorry, it read like you were. We don't generally report on rumours like that unless we're confident in them or their source.
i'd be good with this.
Maybe our squad leader found something out.
http://www.heyuguys.com/harry-gregson-williams-alien-covenant/