James Horner is gone, but more of the late Hollywood composer’s music is on the way.
“Southpaw” director Antoine Fuqua revealed during an appearance on NPR’s “All Things Considered” that Horner not only composed the score for the boxing drama for free, but already composed music for Fuqua’s “Magnificent Seven” remake starring Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Matt Bomer, Vincent D’Onofrio and Peter Sarsgaard.
“I just found out a couple days ago his team flew out here to Baton Rouge, and they brought me all the music from ‘Magnificent Seven,’” Fuqua said. “He had already wrote it for me based on the script.”
Fuqua called the music for the 2017 Western “glorious,” and elaborated on Horner’s generous contribution to “Southpaw,” which stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a boxer who returns to the ring after losing his wife (Rachel McAdams) and young daughter.
“He called me on a Saturday, after he watched the movie, and I said, ‘I don’t have any money’ because it wasn’t a big budget movie,” Fuqua explained. “And he said to me, ‘I love the movie. I love the father-daughter relationship. Don’t worry about the money. I’m just going to do it.’ And he did it for nothing. He paid his crew out of his own pocket.”
Audiences can hear one of the composer’s last contributions to cinema when The Weinstein Company releases “Southpaw” in theaters on Friday. Horner, who died tragically in a plane crash last month, also composed music for Chilean miner drama “The 33,” which hits theaters on Nov. 13.
“He was a legend, an artist and a great friend,” Fuqua said after Horner’s death. “He was magical to work with, and I feel blessed that we had the opportunity to collaborate together.”