Hans Zimmer Expands From Hollywood to Luxury Car Industry as the Oscar-Winner Composes the Debut Track for Latest BMW Model
Hans Zimmer, whose career began decades ago in the 1970s as a part of new wave bands, is now one of the most well-known music composers in the Hollywood entertainment industry. He has worked on multiple projects with some of the best filmmakers like Christopher Nolan, Guy Ritchie, Michael Bay, and Ridley Scott among others.
Zimmer is undoubtedly a musical genius, and now, he has extended his creativity from movies to the luxury car brand BMW. In collaboration with the brand and supermodel Naomi Campbell, the award-winning music producer has now worked on the soundtrack for a car that is one of a kind .
Hans Zimmer Has Composed the Soundtrack for the New BMW Car
Hans Zimmer made his first solo score for the 1987 movie Terminal Exposure, and the big break in his career came soon. In 1988, he worked on the score for one of Tom Cruise’s earliest movies, Rain Man. This earned him his first Academy Award nomination for the score. He won his first Academy Award for Best Original Score for the 1994 animated musical coming-of-age drama The Lion King.
Most recently, the composer has worked on the score for Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two, based on Frank Herbert’s eponymous sci-fi novel of the same name. However, that is not the only thing he has composed music for as he has also soundtracked the premiere of BMW XM Mystique Allure (via Wallpaper), the first-ever BMW tailored with high-fashion materials. He has been working with the brand since 2021 to make drive sound for electrified BMW models.
The car premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival 2024. The car features a Hollywood-meets-haute couture aesthetic, with Naomi Campbell’s love for violet and deep blue looks inspiring its ultimate look. Campbell previously worked with the company on a 2023 BMW XM campaign.
The brand collaborated with Swiss textile manufacturer Jakob Schlaepfer, who supplies fabrics to popular fashion brands like Dior and Chanel, to come up with an intense, highly saturated Ultramarine tone with a silky matte finish for the exterior paintwork. This paintwork was connected to the interior by using saturated velvets and frozen metallic painted sequins which reflected shades from intense violet to deep ultramarine.
Hans Zimmer Has Made Drive Sounds for BMW Electric Automobiles
Zimmer is the genius behind the score for over 200 film and TV projects. One of them is Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy, for which he also composed the Batmobile’s driving sounds. In addition to this, he has also developed sounds for cars and vehicles to form the background for films.
In an interview (via BMW), he revealed that his father’s efforts to protect the planet gave him a green outlook towards life. So, it only seems fair that the two-time Academy Award winner is now working with BMW to develop the sound for electric automobiles. In the interview, he said:
I find electric cars especially thrilling. Particularly when I hear them with our tones and sounds. Our sound gives the vehicles an identity. The musical scale only has 12 notes, and we used three of them to create the BMW sound.
Zimmer was quite delighted to be a part of the project. He said that not having any mechanical restrictions allows them to redesign and redefine the sound of the cities the cars run in and make it an emotional experience. Hopefully, the musician will be able to achieve what he wants with the music he is composing for the company.
