Brian Tyler
Brian Theodore Tyler[2] (born May 8, 1972) is an American composer, conductor, musician, arranger, and record producer, best known for his film, television, and video game scores. In his 26-year career, Tyler has scored seven installments of the Fast & Furious franchise, Rambo, Eagle Eye, The Expendables trilogy, Iron Man 3, Now You See Me, Avengers: Age of Ultron with Danny Elfman, Crazy Rich Asians and The Super Mario Bros. Movie among others. He also composed and re-arranged the current fanfare of the Universal Pictures logo, originally composed by Jerry Goldsmith, for Universal Pictures' 100th anniversary, which debuted with The Lorax (2012), and composed the 2013–2016 Marvel Studios logo, which debuted with Thor: The Dark World (2013), which he also composed the film's score. He composed the NFL Sunday Countdown Theme for ESPN and the Formula One theme (also used in Formula 2 and Formula 3). He is also behind the soundtrack of many television series including Yellowstone. For his work as a film composer, he won the IFMCA Awards 2014 Composer of the Year.
For the auto racer, see Brian Tyler (racing driver).
Brian Tyler
1997–present
Madsonik
His composition for the film Last Call earned him the first of three Emmy nominations, a gold record, and induction into the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[3] As of November 2017, his films have grossed $12 billion worldwide, putting him in the top 10 highest-grossing film composers of all time.[4]
Early life and education[edit]
Tyler was born and raised in Orange County, California. His grandfather was art director Walter H. Tyler. One of his first major influences was his pianist grandmother.[5] He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Los Angeles and a master's from Harvard University.[6] Growing up, he taught himself to play dozens of musical instruments, including drums, piano, guitar, bass, cello, world percussion, synthesizer, charango and bouzouki.[7]
Career[edit]
Tyler began scoring features shortly after graduating from Harvard. Robert Kraft, who was impressed with Tyler's music, encouraged him to pursue a career in film scoring. Tyler's first film score was for the independent film Bartender (1997), directed by Gabe Torres. The following year, he and Red Elvises composed the score for Six-String Samurai (1998).[8]
Tyler's breakthrough came in the early 2000s, after composing for the Frailty (2001). His work on Last Call (2002) earned him an induction into the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[3] Director William Friedkin, impressed with Tyler's work on Frailty, engaged him to compose for The Hunted (2003), which earned Tyler a World Soundtrack Award in 2002 for Best New Film Composer of the Year. Starting in 2003, Tyler began working on big-budget films, including Timeline (2003), Godsend (2004), The Greatest Game Ever Played (2005), and Constantine (2005).[9] His score for The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) hit No. 1 on the iTunes soundtrack sales charts, and his soundtrack for Children of Dune reached No. 4 on the Amazon.com album charts. His cues for Children of Dune were used in multiple other theatrical film trailers, including Master and Commander (2003), Sahara (2005), Cinderella Man (2005), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), and Star Trek (2009).[10] The track "Summon the Worms" was used as a leader for the Dutch show Peking Express, and in the first leaked promotional reel for The Golden Compass (2007).[11]
In 2007, he was hired to compose for Partition (2007), where he integrated Indian and Middle Eastern music with orchestral writing. He conducted the orchestral portion of the score with the Hollywood Studio Symphony in Los Angeles.[12]
On September 5, 2011, Tyler announced that he was in talks to score the 2011 remake of Highlander, and pilot episodes for the animated series Transformers: Prime.[13] He scored four episodes of the latter.
In 2012, Tyler scored and arranged a new version of the fanfare of the Universal Pictures logo, originally composed by Jerry Goldsmith, in observance of the studio's 100th anniversary. The new score added a choir, a more majestic arranging style, and a closing drum cadence.[14] It made its debut alongside the logo with The Lorax on March 2, 2012.
In 2013, Tyler composed the fanfare of Marvel Studios, which made its debut alongside the logo with Thor: The Dark World, which he also composed the score of the film, on October 23, 2013, at the Odeon Leicester Square.
Tyler wrote and produced the song "Shell Shocked" with Kill the Noise, Wiz Khalifa, Ty Dolla Sign, Juicy J and Moxie, released in the summer of 2014 under his artist name Madsonik. It reached No. 2 on the iTunes hip-hop singles charts and has sold over 500,000 copies.
On October 12, 2016, Tyler was hired to score the 2017 action-adventure film XXX: Return of Xander Cage.[15] He has also contributed to the soundtrack by his stage name Madsonik, in a collaboration with Tom Morello and Kill The Noise entitled "Divebomb".[16]
On March 2, 2018, he announced on Twitter[17] that he had been hired to write a new theme for Formula One; it was released on March 23.[18] The theme was also used in both Formula 2 and Formula 3 since 2019, as well as the F1 Academy since 2023. In August 2018, a 27-track soundtrack composed by Tyler for the cable TV series Yellowstone was issued in CD format and as an MP3 download on Amazon.[19]