Steven Spielberg has John Williams, J.J. Abrams has Michael Giacchino and Ron Howard has Hans Zimmer. At least lately. The latter helmer has hired on Zimmer for this last four movies — "The Dilemma," "Angels & Demons," "Frost/Nixon" and "The Da Vinci Code" and they are set to team up once again.
The man who has been earning deserved praise for his recent work on stuff like "Inception," "Sherlock Holmes" and "Rango" will put the musical fuel in the tank for Howard's racing drama "Rush." The film stars Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl in the Peter Morgan-penned story that centers on Austrian Niki Lauda’s (Brühl) rivalry with English racer James Hunt (Hemsworth). In 1976, Lauda nearly died when his Ferrari swerved off the track in only the second lap of the German Grand Prix and crashed, causing him to lapse into a coma and lose his right ear—Hunt won the race. Six weeks later, Lauda was back behind the wheel chasing Hunt at the Italian Grand Prix and followed him to the Canadian and U.S. Grand Prix as well. Hunt would finally earn enough points during 1976 to take the World Driver’s Championship title away from Lauda. Olivia Wilde is also on board playing model Suzy Miller, who fell in love with and married the notoriously womanizing Hunt. But here's the twist — Miller soon found her eye wandering toward a friend of her husband's, none other than legendary actor Richard Burton, a cameo role rumored to be pegged for Howard's bud Russell Crowe.
Production on the film will kick off soon, with a release date tenatively planned for 2012. While we're always curious to hear what Zimmer does next, he hasn't exactly done his most memorable work with Howard. But then again, there is probably only so much you can do with paperback thrillers and dumb rom-coms. This material is certainly the best stuff Howard has worked with in a long time so hopefully it will bring out the best in the composer and director alike. [FilmMusicReporter]
