What does it mean when a soundtrack title is followed up with (Rejected)? I have one like that for "What Dreams May Come", and I still don't get it.
A simple question with a not-so-simple answer. One of several things:
1. The composer was hired, wrote the film score, and ultimately the director rejected it, due to it not fitting well with what he had in mind. Often in this case the composer will go back and rewrite the score. This is also often just with small parts of the score, thus a "rejected" score for that particular movie may never be heard of. But there are examples, such as Alien, by Jerry Goldsmith, one of the greatest film composers of all time. His first score was not bad, by any means, the director just didn't think it fit very well. He went back and changed some things, keeping some of the major themes, and that's what you hear in the movie, yet both the rejected and final cuts are available. This is what happens most often.
2. The written music is poor and another composer is brought in. An example would be with Howard Shore's "Ransom" score, which is not very good.
3. The written music is good, but the style is way off. Another composer is brought in at the last minute (usually one of the top composers like Goldsmith or John Williams, since time is very limited here) and is used in the movie. An example here would be the "What Dreams May Come" score by Ennio Morricone, which was rejected. A great score, but it was too overwhelming for the movie, which was already visually overwhelming. Michael Kamen was brought in to write an original score. Morricone's was definitely not bad, and is a very well-known composer who has written for over 400 movies. Being rejected is very common in the movie business and even the biggest names get rejected once in a while.
4. More rarely, when a composer is "applying" to get the job, he'll send in a score submission promo, consisting of previous work and some original mock-ups of what they have in mind for the movie. Sometimes these get mislabeled as a "Rejected" score, as they weren't really rejected since they never got the job in the first place, so a true score was never written.
As I said before, the What Dreams May Come score fits into number 3. I find rejected scores fascinating, as music plays a heavy part in making or breaking many scenes in a movie. A different score could make a huge difference on a movie altogether. Sometimes parts of rejected scores even make it into the final cut of the movie, so a composer may be listed as an additional composer.
I love collecting rejected scores and have several:
What Dreams May Come - Ennio Morricone
Resident Evil - Ennio Morricone
Air Force One - Randy Newman
Spider Man 2 - Christopher Young
Mission to Mars - Danny Elfman
Mission: Impossible - Alan Silvestri
Troy - Gabriel Yared
Interview With the Vampire - George Fenton
Gladiator - Jerry Goldsmith
X-Men 2 - Klaus Badelt
Plus about 15 more less known ones.
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