Composing Duo The Newton Brothers Discuss Their Incredible Work on 'X-Men '97'
FilmSpeak exclusively chats with composer duo The Newton Brothers about their work on Marvel Animation’s X-Men ‘97.
Andrew Grush and Taylor Newton of The Newton Brothers are mostly known for collaborating with director Mike Flanagan in films and television series like Gerald’s Game, Doctor Sleep, and, most recently, The Fall of the House of Usher. Most recently, they collaborated with two high-profile projects, which include Blumhouse’s Five Nights at Freddy’s and Marvel Animation’s X-Men ‘97, the continuation of X-Men: The Animated Series.
In stepping into the world of X-Men and Marvel as a whole, Grush told FilmSpeak, that it was initially terrifying, especially considering the fact that the show’s theme song is one of the most iconic pieces of music there is:
“It was initially terrifying because it's an iconic piece of music. Everyone loves it. And it’s sort of like going, “Don't screw this up, guys”. No one said that to us, but the little bird on our shoulder definitely did. You also don’t want to screw it up for the child inside you and your own nostalgia. That fear was helpful. It drove us to produce several versions of it to figure out what's working and what's not. In that process, we found our way. We found things we thought were working and presented them to the team. They’d give us some feedback, like “Hey, what about this?”, “We're missing this sound,” or “Hey, we know that the sound is in the original, but maybe we lay off that sound for this reason or that reason.”
It was a lot of that for several months, and it's been really fun to see everyone's reaction to it, because you never know how that's gonna go. Taylor and I are currently working on a project, and by the time it comes out, we're working on something else. So we’ve been pretty busy lately, but it’s great to see reactions from friends going, “Oh, my God, did you see what everyone's saying about this episode?” It’s been really fun to experience all of that.”
The incredible thing about playing in the X-Men sandbox is that the show isn’t beholden to one specific genre, as evident in the third and fourth episodes. In balancing out the show’s multiple tonal shifts through its music, Taylor Newton said that, as composers, “it's so much fun to write music for different genres. Through our history, Andy and I have done so many different styles already, which, interestingly enough, is a great starting point, but it’s always usually a bit different. This one, going from one thing to another, we have to figure out how you smoothly connect that so it doesn't feel so jarring? That was the fun part with this particular property because it's so specific to X-Men that all of this would happen in the show.
There aren’t a lot of movies or other shows that really do that. It was unique to this situation, which was very exciting. It took a lot of experimenting, but it was great.”
During our full video interview, which you can see below, we also discussed the process of blending the old themes with the new, the composers’ familiarity and personal connections with X-Men, alongside their specific influences for the series.
‘X-Men ‘97’ streams new episodes every wednesday, on Disney+.
Be sure to watch the full interview below:
