Composer Hans Zimmer addresses why excluding Dune: Part Two's powerful ending and throughout the entire movie.

While speaking with Variety, Zimmer explains that his Dune: Part Two score being excluded from the Academy Awards worries him because it may negatively impact how studios choose to make movies in the future. He discusses how it feels as though the Academy Award rules are trying to dictate the way art is created. Zimmer is also concerned that studios will shy away from telling multipart stories like Dune and The Lord of the Rings in the future. Check out his comments below:

Listen, I am potentially confronted with an odd problem, which I think is quite interesting because of the amount of music that comes from the first movie into the second. We are not a normal sequel. We’re not like “Pirates of the Caribbean,” you have a theme for Jack Sparrow that comes again. This is different. “Dune: Part One” and “Dune: Part Two” are one story, so it would make no sense for me to go and change the theme for the characters. I knew what the last note of the second one was before I wrote the first note of the first one, and I had the whole arc in my head of how to develop what we were going to do.

There was the story that I was ineligible. What you’re saying you shouldn’t be allowed to use this form of storytelling. “The Lord of the Rings” used this form of storytelling as well. They had one book and one story which they needed because of its sheer size and weightiness, they needed to divide into three parts. We are dividing it into three parts, but we had to split the first book.

Here’s the thing, I’m not going to win an Oscar for the second one if I won an Oscar for the first one, which I did, right? That’s not the point. My point is be careful about these rules because what you’re doing is in the back of the studio’s mind, the Oscars are important, and you’re influencing the way you are saying whether we can create art or not. You’re saying you can’t do that because we won’t allow art to be nominated. We should have the freedom to find ways to create whatever comes to us. Denis made the right choice by splitting a heavy-duty book into two parts.

Before I went on tour, everybody was saying to me, “Oh, the audience’s attention span is terrible these days, and you have to make things short.” Well, that’s not true. The “Pirates” piece is 14 minutes. I think “The Dark Knight” piece is 22 minutes and the audience is with us. And when Denis wants to go and do “Dune” in two long parts, the audience will stay with us. But part of that is you have to go and be able to develop your themes. You have to think of your themes and how you develop them over five hours. So, don’t tell me that makes me ineligible. It really isn’t about me, it’s about the movie.

What This Means For The Movie Industry

The New Rule Sets A Dangerous Precedent

While the reason for excluding Dune: Part Two's score may be rooted in helping to recognize entirely new musical scores, the rule may have the kind of negative impact that Zimmer foresees. Studios are usually most concerned with the box office gross that a new release can generate. However, awards recognition is also valuable, and can be enormously beneficial for the studios behind the Academy Award-nominated movies. The new rule leads to a dangerous precedent where studios decide how movies are made based on the potential of awards' eligibility.

In all likelihood, Dune: Part Two's Academy Award nominations will be extensive, and the movie has a good chance of winning in many of these categories. Zimmer does not need to win again and Dune: Part Two does not need him to win or be nominated. The real issue is that phenomenal movies like Dune: Part Two may not be made in the future because of these rule changes. Additionally, other talented composers who are less well-known than Zimmer could greatly benefit from an Academy Award nomination or win, but may never get that chance based on the current rules.

Our Take On Hans Zimmer's Comments

He Raises Valid Concerns

Zimmer's comments speak to the dangerous trend in which art is being restricted for the wrong reasons. Dune: Part Two is one of the best movies of 2024, and Zimmer's score is a key part of that. As he points out, even if he had been eligible to be nominated, he probably would not have won due to already winning Best Original Score for Dune. Some scores, especially those continuing a story that began in a previous movie, need to use recurring music for certain characters, setting, and themes. This artistic choice should not be constricted by Academy Award guidelines.

Source: Variety