We here at Collider are happy to exclusively debut a new behind-the-scenes featurette for Legendary and Universal’s upcoming actioner The Great Wall that takes a closer look at composer Ramin Djawadi’s score. Djawadi has quickly become one of the most interesting composers working today, as he scored films like Blade: Trinity and Iron Man before composing the iconic opening theme and score for HBO’s Game of Thrones. He continues work on that show to this day, but he’s also expanded his horizons with memorable work on Pacific Rim, Warcraft, and most recently a very different kind of HBO series: Westworld.
Djawadi’s latest feature film effort is The Great Wall, director Zhang Yimou’s action-fantasy epic. The movie takes place 1,000 years in the past and follows an elite force—led by Matt Damon—who makes a valiant stand for humanity atop the titular wall, which is constructed to keep out a beast of monstrous proportions.
In composing the score, Djawadi wanted to echo the film’s bridging of eastern and western culture by combining a big Hollywood symphony orchestra with iconic Chinese solo instruments. It gives the score a lot of different colors, and indeed this featurette previews some snippets from a variety of themes.
Take a closer look at the featurette in the video above, and if you want to pre-order the score on iTunes, Amazon (CD), or Amazon (LP), click the corresponding links. Djawadi is gearing up to go on tour as part of the Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience, for which you can find dates and details here.
The Great Wall opens in theaters on February 17th and also stars Tian Jing, Pedro Pascal, Willem Dafoe, Any Lau, Eddie Peng, Numan Acar, Lu Han, and Bing Liu.
Here's the official logline for The Great Wall:
Starring global superstar Matt Damon and directed by one of the most breathtaking visual stylists of our time, Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers), Legendary's The Great Wall tells the story of an elite force making a valiant stand for humanity on the world's most iconic structure. The first English-language production for Yimou is the largest film ever shot entirely in China. The Great Wall also stars Jing Tian, Pedro Pascal, Willem Dafoe and Andy Lau.