In the latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Marvel antiheroes — Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), John Walker (Wyatt Russell), Ava Starr / Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian (David Harbour) — join forces against a familiar, mischievous foe. This group, which Shostakov deems the Thunderbolts, embarks on a quest to save a newfound friend in a film showing off hand-to-hand combat action sequences, car chases fraught with explosions, and VFX-enhanced fights between superhumans.
Placed throughout action-laden setpieces, though, is a story about characters truly helping one another and learning about each other’s darkest demons in an incredibly emotional story that may be Marvel Studios’ deepest project yet. Throughout it all — both action setpieces and tender character moments — a beautiful score plays, courtesy of the band Son Lux — Oscar® nominees for their previous work scoring 2022’s Everything Everywhere All at Once.
At a press junket for Thunderbolts* on April 27, the band — Ian Chang, Ryan Lott, and Rafiq Bhatia — spoke with Immersive about making the leap from Everything Everywhere All At Once to the newest Marvel project and how they felt about working in the MCU.
[This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.]
Could you talk about joining this project and the onboarding process?
Chang: We were approached by Jake Schreier, the director, whose idea was to call upon us for the film. Ryan had worked with Jake previously on a film called Paper Towns, which Jake directed. I think one thing that was unique about the onboarding process was that we were onboarded very, very early, like much earlier than is typical for composers. Traditionally, the scoring role is part of the post-production. Still, we were part of pre-production and post-production, which was really cool.
That gave us the opportunity to find the sound of the film, working closely with Jake, before anything was shot. What we were going off of was just a great script and some art direction images and things like that and Jake’s direction. It was really cool to be able to come up with the themes and the sound of the movie ahead of time.
One of the things that was really kind of an honor for us in that process was how, in doing so, Jake was able to sort of share the music with the cast members. He told us that for the first table read, they played a suite of the themes that we had made for the studio, for the cast before they read, so our music was in everyone’s ears before anyone even said a line. I think that’s really, really neat, and to be part of the atmosphere aesthetically from that early-on, it’s really special for us to be able to do that.
Was there quite a bit of excitement at joining the MCU, or did you just treat it like any other project?
Lott: Obviously (it’s) a huge honor to be invited to put your creative stamp on an aspect of such an incredibly rich tradition of films… but also it was confusing. It’s like, ‘Wait, what? Us? Really?’ Definitely not something we imagined for our future. But the previous project we did was also beguiling, and in a great way. We scored the film Everything Everywhere All at Once, which was our first film together as a band. Similar to this one, it was just something that came out of nowhere where we didn’t expect it, but also this one proved to be a really rewarding experience, and one in which we grew so much individually and collectively. A good mix of ‘Uh, really?’ and ‘Hell yeah.’
With the score, what was something about the film that you really wanted to bring out or highlight? Anything about the narrative?
Bhatia: These characters are complicated. They feel very real. They feel grounded, shaded, fallible, and vulnerable, and all these things make them feel a lot closer to our everyday experience than the traditional superhero. I think we really wanted to give voice to that intimate side of who they were and also their tensions, and trying to figure out a way to work together, begrudgingly or willingly, whether it was effective or not. That was something that I think ended up being a really rewarding experience for us and brought to bear a lot of what we tend to like to do, which is to kind of hold things with contrast and exaggerate the light and dark inside of the same piece of music…
How did working on such a big, huge genre project (Everything Everywhere All at Once) prepare you for this next big blockbuster?
Chang: Ryan has more experience scoring films than Rafiq and I do. For Rafiq and me, (Everything Everywhere All at Once) was our first time scoring a film, really ever. The learning experience was so huge and so insane, especially because scoring that film really, it’s like scoring three films, both in terms of (the) amount of music but also the different genres that we had to touch and the ways in which we had to communicate all these different types of ideas and settings and things.
I would also say that for Everything Everywhere All At Once, we had fewer resources at our disposal and a smaller team, and we were doing a lot of things in a very hands-on way. I just felt like it prepared me, at least, personally, in every single way, to be able to walk into a situation like this. Also, because of that film, the music of it spans so much… like emotional, intimate moments, huge bombastic moments. It covered so much ground that it at least gave me some confidence going into this, feeling like we could do it. Even though the music ended up being quite different and the process was quite different, it definitely was super helpful to have been able to do that and then jump into this movie. Another thing about that film is that we worked on Everything Everywhere for a very long time because of COVID. I was able to learn a lot.
For all the big action scenes and the loudness, what stood out to me just as much were those smaller moments between characters, and how quiet and soft the score can get. Did you find certain aspects of the film to be harder, like scoring those big fight scenes and visuals? Or is scoring simple conversations (and) more emotional moments just as difficult, or easier?
Bhatia: We were very sort of intentional about trying to create themes… where the same theme could be dressed in certain clothing and look great and sound great in an action setting, but then could also be really emotional and intimate. But that being said, one line that took a lot of iterating and trying different things in order to find a way to land on a direction that worked was just to let some of the really dry humor moments play. That is such a fine line, and the humor’s so subtle, and it’s very deadpan. The music cannot telegraph the joke in any way, and it can’t really support the joke by trying to support it. It needs to be neutral in a certain very, very particular way.
Even though those are some of the moments where it feels like the score is maybe the least active or doing the least, that stuff is so hard to really get right. There are moments in the score of that nature that really took some work.
Now that the project’s finished (and) released, how do you feel to be on the other side of everything?
Lott: It’s a big relief, especially because we’re really proud of this. We’re really proud of where we wound up with it. We’re proud of the process, too. I think that’s a really important aspect of creating art for us, as the process is also really life-giving. We all learned a lot, and we all grew a lot. We started this with a kind of naivete, that it was healthy but quite profound, about how this was going to work. Like, what on earth? How are we going to do this? Discovering that process and cultivating a family around the score of people who helped bring it to life made me feel really proud of that aspect as well. Hopefully you can hear it in the music.
Thunderbolts* is currently playing in theaters.
