Klaus Badelt

Klaus Badelt
Klaus Badelt, 2007
Background information
Born	(1967-06-12) 12 June 1967 Frankfurt, West Germany
Origin	Frankfurt, Germany
Genres	Film scores
Occupation(s)	Composer, producer, Arranger

Klaus Badelt (born 12 June 1967) is a German composer, best known for composing film scores.

Life and career

Badelt was born in Frankfurt, West Germany. He started his musical career composing for movies and commercials in his homeland. In 1998, Oscar-winning film composer Hans Zimmer invited Badelt to work at Media Ventures in Santa Monica, California, his studio co-owned by Jay Rifkin. Since then, Badelt has been working on a number of his own film and television projects such as The Time Machine and K-19: The Widowmaker. He also collaborated with other Media Ventures composers, such as Harry Gregson-Williams, John Powell, and Zimmer; and mentored several others like Ramin Djawadi and Steve Jablonsky.

While collaborating with Zimmer, Badelt contributed to the Oscar-nominated scores for The Thin Red Line and The Prince of Egypt, and wrote music for many well known directors including Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Terrence Malick, John Woo, Kathryn Bigelow, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Werner Herzog, Sean Penn, Gore Verbinski, Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg.

Badelt co-wrote and co-produced the score to Hollywood box office hit Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, along with Zimmer and singer/composer Lisa Gerrard. Having contributed music to Gladiator, Mission: Impossible II and Michael Kamen's score for X-Men, Badelt was involved in the three most successful movies in 2000. Badelt also collaborated with Zimmer on other successful films, such as The Pledge, and 2001 blockbusters Hannibal and Pearl Harbor. One of his more famous and popular scores was for the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

In 2004, Klaus founded his own film music company, Theme Park Studios, in Santa Monica. Since then, he has scored films such as Constantine, Poseidon, Rescue Dawn, and TMNT.

Among Badelt's most critically celebrated scores are the Chinese fantasy film The Promise and DreamWorks' remake of The Time Machine, the latter of which earned him the Discovery of the Year Award at the World Soundtrack Awards 2003. He also wrote the music for the closing ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and was commissioned to write an opera about China's First Emperor, to be premiered in 2015.

Klaus worked on the soundtrack for The Promise for almost 6 months. The song which can be heard in the movie's end credits is an ancient folk song in China, and very few people can still sing it. For that, Klaus traveled almost two weeks in China to find someone who was able to sing the whole folk song in order to rearrange it for the score.

Film scores

1998

• Der Eisbär (with Henning Lohner)

2001

• Extreme Days
• Invincible (with Hans Zimmer)
• The Pledge (with Hans Zimmer)

2002

• Equilibrium
• K-19: The Widowmaker
• The Time Machine
• Teknolust

2003

• The Recruit
• Ned Kelly
• Basic
• Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
• Beat the Drum

2004

• Catwoman

2005

• The Promise
• Constantine (with Brian Tyler)

2006

• 16 Blocks
• Ultraviolet
• Poseidon
• Miami Vice
• Rescue Dawn

2007

• Redline
• Heaven and Earth
• Skid Row
• Premonition
• TMNT

2008

• The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior (direct-to-video)
• Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (direct-to-video)
• Pour Elle
• Dragon Hunters
• Beijing Olympics Closing Ceremonies

2009

• Le Petit Nicolas (French)
• Solomon Kane
• Waking Madison
• Killshot

2010

• Valentine
• Heartbreaker
• Dylan Dog: Dead of Night
• Shanghai
• The Extra Man
• À bout portant
• Happy People: A Year in the Taiga

2011

• The Swarm
• MotorStorm: Apocalypse
• The Prodigies
• Seven Days in Utopia
• The Oranges

2012

• Shanghai Calling
• Asterix and Obelix: God Save Britannia
• Un plan parfait

2014

• Halo: Nightfall
• Supercondriaque
• Le Père Noël

2015

• Queen of the Desert
• The Monk (2015 film) (in post production)
• No Way Jose! (filming)
• Wish (filming)

Awards

Year	Project	Category	Result
2001	Gladiator (soundtrack)	Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Original Score	Nominated
2002	The Time Machine (soundtrack)	World Soundtrack Award for Discovery of the Year	Won
2004	Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (soundtrack)	ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards Top Box Office Films	Won
2004	Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (soundtrack)	Saturn Award Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA: Best Music	Nominated
2004	Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (soundtrack)	Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Original Score	Nominated
2004	Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (soundtrack)	World Soundtrack Award for Best Original Score of the Year	Nominated
2005	Constantine (soundtrack)	International Film Music Critics Association: Best Original Score for a Horror/Thriller Film	Nominated
2006	Constantine (soundtrack)	ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards Top Box Office Films	Won
2008	Die Jagd nach dem Schatz der Nibelungen (soundtrack)	German Television Awards Best Music	Nominated
2009		Rhode Island International Film Festival Crystal Image Award	Won

External links

• Klaus Badelt at the Internet Movie Database
• Klaus Badelt at AllMusic
• Interview with Stumped Magazine
• Remote Control Fan Site
• ScoreNotes Interview
• Official Site
• Swiss-German Fansite, visited by Klaus Badelt too