The soundtrack for the upcoming Blade Runner 2049 will be made available via digital retailers this Thursday (October 5) on the same day as the film’s UK release.
The tracklist for the soundtrack, composed by Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch, will be exclusively revealed during a Facebook live broadcast with the two composers later today. The album concludes with an original song by "a GRAMMY® Award nominee" according to a press release announcing the soundtrack’s release.
"First of all, I realised that Denis [Villeneuve] is a director who has a vision; he has a voice," says Zimmer talking about the soundtrack. "Remember, I’ve done a lot of movies with Ridley Scott. So, it was important that this was an autonomous piece of work. Let’s just be honest. Ridley is a hard act to follow – as is Vangelis. While Ben was four years-old, I had actually experienced all of this. We watched and literally, as we stopped watching, we decided on the palette. We decided this wasn’t going to be an orchestral thing. The story spoke to us."
Wallfisch adds: "We all know what Blade Runner feels like and what that experience is to watch this incredible masterpiece. The first question we asked ourselves was, ‘How can we reinvent and make it fresh and new, but still be in that world?’ The mission from the beginning was this idea of finding the heart of the film – what is its soul? When you discover the simplest possible theme, it sums up humanity almost. I feel like that’s what we were all striving for towards the beginning of the process."
The soundtrack was previously due to be led by Jóhann Jóhannsson, with additional material provided by Zimmer and Wallfisch, but he was removed from the role last month with Zimmer and Wallfisch drafted in to take over.
Commenting recently on the decision to take Jóhannsson off the project, Villeneuve said that "the movie needed something different, and I needed to go back to something closer to Vangelis. He also said that Jóhannsson is "one of [his] favourite composers alive today".
