Composer Daniel Pemberton Turned Down Steel Drums for Project Hail Mary

Composer Daniel Pemberton passed on steel drums for the score of Project Hail Mary because they sounded like The Little Mermaid, he told Deadline.

Pemberton spoke about the music at Deadline's Sound & Screen Film event, and the interview was published on Monday 9 November. The film is directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller and adapted from the novel by Andy Weir. Ryan Gosling plays Ryland Grace, a science teacher who wakes on a spaceship light years from home with no memory of who he is or how he got there.

Pemberton said his task was to build a language from the ground up, using a palette of sounds that the film could call its own. The alien character, Rocky, is the reason that approach matters most. Pemberton's choices for the score included wood blocks and the Cristal Baschet, an instrument made of glass rods that is played by rubbing them with water.

On the film's business side, Deadline reported that Project Hail Mary has earned nearly $700 million worldwide. Amazon MGM Studios had earlier announced, in a press release dated 1 July, that the film would stream on Prime Video from 3 July.

Pemberton is also working with Lord and Miller on Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, the animated sequel. He said he has seen an animated rough cut of the film, and that the last cut he saw made him cry several times. He did not give a release date in the interview.

Those are not the only looks at his work on the film. Dolby's Creator Talks series featured Pemberton discussing the score in April, and Abbey Road Studios hosted a panel called "Music As The Language Of Survival" in June, with a segment on the Project Hail Mary music.

What stands out is how much of the score came from the instruments themselves. A glass-rod instrument and a set of wood blocks are an unusual way to score a film about a lone astronaut, and Pemberton's account of rejecting the steel drums shows how many small choices sit behind a single sound.