This has bugged me for years, so I turn to the Dope for an answer. Mods this could possibly go in GQ, because I’m looking for a factual answer, but it deals with movies. Move to where necessary.
20th Century Fox has a theme they run during the introduction to their movies – however, during certain movies, it runs longer.
Examples are here for the most common shorter one, and here for the longer one. The additional fanfare is at about :10 on the second one.
My question is, why do they have the longer one, and how do they decide which movies will get the longer version? I suspect it’s used for those movies intended to be blockbusters, although I can’t think of any specific examples. Although (and again I can’t come up with anything concrete) I’m sure I’ve heard the additional fanfare on garbage movies that clearly weren’t all-time gems…they were maybe equal to Friday the 13th Part X or something.
Does anyone know for sure the process for picking which movies get which intro?
The longer version is called the “Cinemascope” version, as it was originally created in the 1950s for use on movies which were filmed in that format. It had fallen out of use (in large part because Cinemascope had, as well), until George Lucas brought it back for use in front of the original *Star Wars *in 1977. I get the sense that the choice of which version (if any) to use is, at least in part, up to the individual filmmaker; I suspect that Lucas wanted the longer version in order to be evocative of older movies (or maybe he just liked it).
Alfred Newman, Randy Newman’s uncle, composed the theme in the 1930s. I think another Newman, not sure which one, composed the extention piece you sometimes hear.
Isn’t it also true that there’s a very short version (possibly without music altogether) which plays before movies which Fox distributes but didn’t actually produce?
I always liked the full “Cinemascope” version, and always looked for it.
When I saw Star Wars for the first time, and heard the entire overture for the first time in a movie theater, I knew that Lucas was the kind of director that paid attention to details, and that the movie would be a real treat. I wasn’t disappointed.
