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John Williams, composer on ‘Star Wars’ and Spielberg films, taking a break

Posted at 4:23 PM, Mar 22, 2015
and last updated 2015-03-22 18:23:08-04
John Williams at the Boston Symphony Hall after he conducted the Boston Pops. May 2006. Photo user Nationalparks via Wikimedia commons.

John Williams at the Boston Symphony Hall after he conducted the Boston Pops. May 2006. Photo user Nationalparks via Wikimedia commons.

By Henry Hanks

CNN

(CNN) — For the first time ever, we’re getting a live-action “Star Wars” movie without the man who composed the “Star Wars” theme.

“Star Wars: Rogue One,” the recently-announced “Star Wars” spinoff movie starring Felicity Jones, will not include the soaring music of Oscar winner John Williams.

Williams originally scored “Star Wars” and every other episode since then, including the upcoming “Force Awakens” later this year.

However, composer Alexandre Desplat has revealed that he will be working on 2016’s “Rogue One.”

The film’s director, Gareth Edwards, worked with Desplat last year on “Godzilla.”

A “Star Wars” movie without that iconic Williams sound is certainly something that fans will have to get used to, and Desplat has a big job ahead of him.

Williams’ work will also be absent from the next Steven Spielberg movie, “Bridge of Lies,” it was announced this week.

For the past three decades, Williams has scored every single Spielberg film, but the new movie, starring Tom Hanks and due out October 16, will be scored by Thomas Newman, best known for the score of “American Beauty.”

Movie studio DreamWorks attributed Williams’ absence to a “minor health issue, since corrected.”

Williams’ best known non-“Star Wars” music is almost entirely from Spielberg films, including “Jaws,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “E.T. The Extra Terrestrial” and “Jurassic Park.”

Another upcoming Spielberg movie, “The BFG,” will include a Williams score.

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