Danny Elfman Says He Was Told To Collaborate With Prince On BATMAN Soundtrack, And Ended Up Leaving

Musician Danny Elfo is best known for leading the 80s band Oingo Boingo, as well as writing the soundtracks to so many movies and TV shows, including Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, Cockroach juice, Batman, The Simpsons, Edward scissor hands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and many more. But before you came into the picture more, director Tim Burton he was just a fan of Elfman’s work in Oingo Boingo, and Burton asked him if he would try composing for the weird little play Pee Wee’s Big Adventure in 1985. She hired him and their partnership was sealed.

But it wasn’t when Elfman was approached about playing the Batman film in 1989 that he wondered if he had made up his mind. It included the stakes and playfulness of the quirky Pee Wee movie, but this was much bigger in scale and a film that would undoubtedly have been a blockbuster hit. Elfman felt very much in over his head. In a recent interview with GQ, the musician talked about creating the soundtrack for Batmanand apparently, he initially walked away from the film, but things worked out eventually.

“I’ve never done anything harder than Batman because first and foremost, I had to prove myself. You know, okay, he’s the comical wacky guy, and here I’m doing like this Batman movie. Understandably, I think they were like, ‘We need someone who can make this kind of music.’ But nobody knew what kind of music it was. There wasn’t really superhero music. There was just Superman. And we said we know we didn’t want it to be Superman, John Williams. And then there was an element with the producer in the studio of wanting it to be a pop soundtrack. There was definitely this moment of, ‘Danny, we want you to collaborate with Prince and co-write the score.’ And I say, “I can’t do this. People: “Did you really say that?” I love Prince, but not for that soundtrack. I already knew what the score was and I knew that if I collaborated, he would write songs and I would orchestrate his songs and essentially be a glorified arranger rather than a composer, you know, because he was world famous, and I wasn’t still nothing. I had to leave.”

Elf continued:

“I was so depressed. I felt like I just blew up my career. And then a month later I got the call saying, ‘Danny, you’re back. We need to move. Come on, come on.’ And how [heavy sigh] this gamble paid off. But it was a miserable time. On the other hand, I’ve already heard the music in my head. I knew what it was and was determined that that would be the score. The producer was so hard on me, John Peters, and then there it is, I think it’s the third presentation. And I didn’t know how to make introductions. I was playing this weird music that was all inspired, you know, crazy. And then Tim says, “Play the march, play the march, play the march.” And that’s what he called titles. I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve got this piece here.’ And obviously, I know now, you lead with your title, obviously. I didn’t really know, I understood it then. And I put this piece of music on and John starts conducting in his chair. And then at one point he gets up, and goes like this. And me, and Tim looks at me and goes, ‘Yeah, we have it,’” he added with a laugh.

And that paved the way for Elfman to make major contributions to the film scores we know and love today. Some you may not even know were Hunting for goodwill, Big fishand the film directed by Sam Raimi Spiderman movie. What are your favorite movies with Danny Elfman soundtrack?