At its basic musical core, the James Bond movies hold one simple melody at the heart of the franchise. “The James Bond Theme” is such a notable song that many people can imitate or reference the DNA that drives any proper 007 score. At the same time, being tapped to score a whole Bond adventure like Skyfall can be daunting, leaving even someone like legendary composer like Thomas Newman with a case of “2 AM sweats” in process.
I can’t blame him, as approaching any sort of duties involving the fate of this legacy of espionage action would strike fear in the hearts of even the hardest talent. That was all the better reason for me to ask Newman about his experience scoring not one, but two 007 films for collaborator Sam Mendes.
As I interviewed him on behalf of his work on Disney/Pixar’s ever-sneaky box office hit Elemental, all sorts of other professional experiences were fair game as well. When it came to discussing his part of the James Bond saga, Thomas Newman shared with CinemaBlend these specific late night worries:
The fact that Sam [Mendes] asked me, I felt very privileged that he wanted to bring a Yank over to London and work on a Bond movie. I knew the stakes were incredibly high for him as well. So there was not only having to please Sam, but to please the franchise, because in the case of a Bond movie, it’s always gonna be about Bond. It’s not gonna be about ‘Tom Newman doing Bond,’ it’s gonna be, ‘did Tom Newman do Bond the way Bond needs to be done?’ I think that was the daunting kind of 2 am sweats I had when I was working on Skyfall.
Admittedly, this isn’t exactly a problem that was common to the James Bond legacy prior to 1989’s License to Kill, as series regular John Barry had composed all but two of the first 15 007 adventures. Live and Let Die’s scoring duties fell to composer George Martin, while the legendary Marvin Hamlisch took the baton for The Spy Who Loved Me.
By time Barry had left the series, Die Hard maestro Michael Kamen would step in for Timothy Dalton’s second and final Bond outing. The presence of a regular in-house composer for the 007 films wouldn't happen again until 1997, as David Arnold joined up with 1997’s Tomorrow Never Dies, sticking it out into the Craig era's soft reboot in 2006's Casino Royale.
Alas, Arnold departed from the series after 2008, through the unfairly maligned Daniel Craig James Bond movie Quantum of Solace. But by that point, he'd already left an indelible mark on this musical soundscape thanks to his rendition of "The James Bond Theme."
That too could have contributed to the 2 AM sweats Thomas Newman encountered, as in the Amazon Prime documentary The Sound of 007, he even admitted he was too daunted to change anything in that sterling arrangement. That said, Newman does work the tune in rather brilliantly into the cue "Breadcrumbs," which accompanies 007's loving threat to send M (Judi Dench) sailing through the power of an ejector seat.
As Sam Mendes slid into the director’s chair, he recruited his frequent musical collaborator in early 2012, ready to further modernize the world of James Bond. That in turn inspired the beginnings of those nights of panic, as Thomas Newman shared with CinemaBlend his immediate thoughts after getting the call:
What was going through my mind was, I never thought I’d get to work on a Bond movie. It was never something that I wanted to work on, for all of the reasons your kind of implying. Which is, the music has such a history. There are such crazed fans, I mean someone once said, ‘It’s like shooting heroin into the base of your brain,’ when you hear that tune. It’s just like, ‘Wow!,’ it’s just so amazing. Again, similar to Nemo, what does it mean to write music for a Bond movie?
Clearly Newman’s efforts weren’t a deal breaker, as Skyfall became the first James Bond movie to hit $1 billion in worldwide grosses. Making the 50th anniversary of EON Productions legacy franchise something to celebrate, Thomas would eventually be brought back to score Spectre.
As alluded to above, Thomas Newman holds Finding Nemo and Skyfall in a very similar regard when it comes to his career. Keep in mind, this is the same man who has projects like The Lost Boys, The Shawshank Redemption and Wall-E on his resume. And with that earlier Pixar effort, Newman got to engage in a very inspiring collaboration with Peter Gabriel.
Even with those films in the equation, Maestro Newman reflected on his two watershed projects with these further details:
Those two movies, in fact, were defining moments of my life. In terms of, ‘Could I survive?’ They were real survival moments for me. And ultimately, really broadened my sense of what I thought I could do, and what I ended up being able to do. And broadened my world, in the case of Skyfall, going over to London and writing over there, working with London musicians, mixing over there, it really broadened my sense of self, my sense of friends and colleagues. It was just an amazing experience.
Thomas Newman’s work on Skyfall, as well as Spectre, broadened the world of 007 as well. Through amazing tracks like “Shanghai Drive” and “Granborough Road,” the contemporary sensibilities of action music shine through, both in pacing and instrumentation. Not to mention that the former track has an electronic sound to it that certainly speaks to both the plot and the timeframe Skyfall embodies.
At the same time, lush orchestrations in tracks like “Brave New World” and “The Chimera” (which can be heard below) help sell the classic 007 hallmarks of showing off beautiful locations on display. Tie it together with emotional beats like “Voluntary Retirement,” Newman’s theme for M in his two outings, and it’s a well-rounded score that makes this score worth the night sweats it inspired.
Through his two scores in the series, Thomas Newman not only "did Bond," but he indeed gave the franchise the musical justice he had fretted over early on. Those results are now forever intertwined with the musical legacy of Commander Bond, with the film commemorating his cinematic anniversary standing out as a favorite amidst the history of albums accompanying such delights.
For those James Bond fans who want to revisit Skyfall in all of its splendor, that title is currently streaming for those with a Netflix subscription. Meanwhile, Thomas Newman’s score for that very film is also streaming on most services you would use to enjoy fine movie music.
