A great Hollywood blockbuster score doesn't come around too often — after all, no one wants to spend $100 million or more then weave in a risky soundtrack that could derail an audience's reception. Thankfully, Marvel Studios went against the grain and let the legendary Alan Silvestri deliver a rousing, old school score for their 2011 period action adventure flick Captain America: The First Avenger. If there's anyone worth taking a gamble on, it's Silvestri, a two-time Oscar-nominated composer whose works can be heard in such films as Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump, The Abyss, The Quick and the Dead, Contact and the Back to the Future trilogy.

Following up his inspired work on Captain America, Silvestri returned to the Marvel movie universe for another round: The Avengers. I spoke to the composer about taking on the ultimate superhero team-up, everything from the pressures of working under Marvel's calculated master plan, working with Joss Whedon and figuring out how to weave all these different heroes into one musical smorgasbord. Amazingly, Silvestri didn't take too long a break after knocking Avengers out of the park: he already has two other projects in the pipeline.

What was the process of you becoming involved with The Avengers after your work on Captain America? They must have been happy with it. It’s a fantastic score, by the way. How did you get brought back onto the Marvel train?

Alan Silvestri: Well, I think it is directly related to having done Captain America. I think it was a good experience for all of us, and when The Avengers started coming around, I think it hadn’t even been a year since I had done Captain America. I really think it was a direct result of that film, the working environment and how it all went for all of us. We all thought, ‘Well, maybe we should try this again.’

Was there a thematic reason for bringing you back? Marvel has done a fantastic job of keeping their films connected through design and tone, in order to bring all these heroes together. Bringing someone back seems calculated.

AS: I think that is certainly in the mix. I think, for instance, in Captain America — well, I don’t think, I know for a fact that Joe Johnston wanted, very specifically, a theme for Captain America. And so, that was something that was kind of a primary mission. But even the Tesseract, which is kind of the energy underpinning the Marvel world, had its own theme. Which remained for The Avengers. It was established in Captain America. The way the world of scoring works is, they had that theme whether they had me or not. For instance, the Captain America theme. But I think it was because of the working relationship. They very definitely wanted thematic material for The Avengers, as you might imagine. So I think all things considered, it seemed to them to possibly be a good fit.

That's what fascinates me: they’ve tried to fit all of these people in the same world and seemingly as a way of doing that, avoided developing themes for their heroes in individual movies. Captain America stands in opposition to that plan. I can hum the Cap theme. Not so for the rest of the Avengers. Was that a plan on Marvel’s part to be able to bring them together? Was there ever pushback on introducing a theme for Captain America?

AS: Well, we had talked about the whole range. I think, just in theory, everyone agreed early on that the idea of everyone having their clearly definable theme would probably be more distracting than helpful. What we discovered in Captain America is that there is a blessing and a curse to a clearly definable theme. The blessing is, it’s clearly definable. The curse is, it’s clearly definable! And so, a little of it goes a long, long way.

You can grow tired very quickly of, every time you see someone, hearing, ‘Ba ba-ba ba bum!’ [Laughs] No. It’s like, ‘Oh my God I’ll kill myself if I hear that again.’ So, we kind of went through the experiment on Captain America. And we discovered that a little goes a long way. And you can reference the theme, you can be a little more abstract with it, and still retain a kind of presence with it. For instance, in The Avengers, the Captain America full-on theme really doesn’t appear.

But there is a little twist of fanfare.

AS: Right. The sensibility, absolutely. Now, The Avengers, we knew the Avengers would need something. And Marvel very much wanted that. As did Joss. And so, I remember the first time I saw a screening, early, early on. I was already on board. I had been hired. But I hadn’t seen the movie yet. And when we get to the point in the film when the Avengers all assemble in the middle of the street, it’s a very unique spot, because they’re actually not moving. They’re not doing anything. They’re standing there.

The anti-action.

AS: Yeah, it’s the anti-action moment! But I’ll never forget — in the screening, we get to that moment in the film, and all of a sudden, I turned around and all the heads were looking at me. It’s like, ‘This is the spot, pal!’

'OK, Alan. This is the part where you do something.'

AS: This is the part where the music has got to do something, because you can see, all of our folks are standing there, shoulder to shoulder, but they’re not moving.

It’s your action scene.

AS: [Laughs] Yes, exactly! Which was an interesting thing from the point of view of, ‘How do you approach a theme for The Avengers?’ Because it had to work in that place, and it wasn’t necessarily an action idea. More of this kind of heroic statement. And the coming together of something greater than the sum of its parts. So, it’s kind of an interesting situation to work through.

Because there aren’t really themes for the individual heroes, did you use instrumentation that you linked with the different characters? I’m thinking of Peter and the Wolf, where each character has an identifiable sound or instrument.

AS: It was a combination of basically everything. For instance, the movie opens with the Tesseract theme. That is a very clearly definable theme. It was established in Captain America, and we used it over the very opening of the film. Over the logos and all of that. As soon as we get into the start of the picture, there was a very definite theme for Loki. And it’s this low, ominous sequence of chords, but it’s used in many places throughout the film, when his presence is either visible or implied. Again, it’s somewhat subtle, because it’s these long, low tones. But it’s very clearly a definable theme.

Midway working through the film — or actually, maybe two thirds of the way through — I had done some of the scenes with Scarlett [Johansson]. I got a call from Joss, and he said, ‘You know, I’d really like to explore something that would be more clearly definable as her theme.’ He said, ‘I’d like it to have a little bit of a Russian feeling to it.’ So, I actually went back and came up with a very clearly definable theme. There are hints of it in the interrogation. There are hints of it in her scene with Loki, where she’s basically interrogating him, unbeknownst to him. And then when she’s on the speeders flying, we’re playing it full-out.

To get back to the idea of instrumentation, Iron Man — although I didn’t come up with some kind of clearly melodic theme — he always has the more contemporary, rhythmic component to a lot of his music. In the beginning, when we first see him in the film, and he’s flying towards Stark Towers, there’s a very kind of percussive — contemporary, if you will — rhythmic component to him. Speaking to your idea of instrumentation: brassy…ponderously grand. That’s always at work. Ways to separate, even if not with an overtly clear, melodic theme.

Next: Teaming up with Whedon, Action Movie Scores and Word on Silvestri's Upcoming Projects!

Find Matt Patches directly on Twitter @misterpatches and remember to follow @Hollywood_com!

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