Boxoffice Pro Fall 2020

Left: Joe’s No. 1 argument
to 22 (Tina Fey) as to why
life is worthwhile: pizza.
Right:Jazz great
Dorothea Williams
(Angela Bassett) gives
Joe his big break.
All images
© 2020 Disney/Pixar.
All Rights Reserved.
“You could have the best
TV and sound system in the
world in your house, and it
will not be the equivalent of
seeing it in a theater.”
subsequent work on projects like Gone
Girl or HBO’s “Watchmen”—or, for that
matter, Reznor’s status as founder and
front man of Nine Inch Nails—doesn’t
exactly scream “Pixar movie.” Getting
Reznor and Ross to do Soul’s score was
another “example of us going, ‘OK, how
can we shake things up a bit?” says Docter.
“I’m certainly very proud of the music in
all our films. It’s beautiful. But how do we
get a different sonic thumbprint to this
film? How can we make it feel unique and
special?” Working with frequent Pixar
collaborators like Randy Newman or
Michael Giacchino, Docter notes, involves
the bulk of the score being written after
the film is “more or less locked.” With
Soul, Reznor and Ross came in earlier,
writing “themes and cues that we started
cutting into the film as we were crafting
the story”—a melding of music and image
befitting the film’s roots in jazz.
Pixar, jazz, and Trent Reznor and
Atticus Ross—“When you see those
names on paper, it seems like it would
clash,” Powers admits. “But it’s actually
very symbiotic. I don’t want to spoil it, but
there are a few moments in the film that I
find transcendent, and it’s actually [due
to the melding of] the work of Trent and
Atticus and Jon Batiste.” While Soul gives
its viewers—or listeners—a different sonic
experience than what they might expect
based on previous Pixar movies, ultimately
“it works better than even I suspected it
would.”
And it’s a musical experience that’s
more than worthy, Powers argues, of the
theatrical experience. “You could have
the best TV and sound system in the
world in your house, and it will not be the
equivalent of seeing it in a theater. The
film was made for theater. I really hope
that everyone has at least an opportunity,
or a choice, to see it that way. Because it’s
pretty incredible. It’s a big-screen film.
That’s for sure.”
Fall 2020
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