Credit: Edited by Inside the MagicIf you love theme parks, as well as the dark styling of massive hits like Netflix’s Wednesday or Disney’s Nightmare Before Christmas, we have some great news for you: The iconic composer Danny Elfman is getting ready to join Universal Orlando Resort.
This new opportunity has come about just after Elfman recently blew away Netflix fans with his score in Tim Burton’s Wednesday. The show is now moving into the second season next year, and has become the second most popular show on Netflix behind Squid Games and just after Stranger Things 4. Now, he is taking that dark atmospheric tone with him into another spooky project.
Elfman’s talents will soon be heard at a different theme park: Universal Orlando Resort’s Epic Universe.
As noted by Deadline, Danny Elfman will be scoring one of the lands in the theme park, based on Universal’s Classic Monsters, for an overall gloomy and eerie vibe that guests can partake in when they enter and explore the horrors that await.
Epic Universe is the latest theme park development at Universal Orlando Resort, and is expected to open in 2025. The new park is expected to have multiple hotels, such as Universal Stella Nova Resort and Universal Terra Luna Resort, as well as new dining and shopping. The park will have a celestial theme, with different lands that include Super Nintendo World, How to Train Your Dragon, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (Ministry of Magic), and a Universal classic monsters section.
In the past, we have seen Universal utilize their classic monster repertoire with Dracula, Frankenstein, Mummy, Bride of Frankenstein, and more during Halloween Horror Nights, but during the day, they would appear as a meet and greet character only. Universal removed the Monsters Café dining location to make room for Minions Café, and after that, the spooky presence felt as if it barely existed, even though the success of the Classic Monsters houses during Halloween proved that there is a market for the characters and world they live in.
More on Epic Universe’s Dark Universe
At the moment, it is rumored by Orlando Park Stop that the land will be titled Dark Universe, which interestingly jabs at Disney’s Blue Sky project of a villain’s land, one that fans like myself want to see, but considering this was brought up at the 2022 D23 convention and never discussed again, have a hard time believing that it is something that will come to life in the near future. With TRON Lightcycle / Run, a ride with existing blueprints taking five years to come to fruition, an entirely new land with no official announcement seems as grim as it’s imaginary theming.
As noted by Orlando Park Stop, “After passing through the portal, which is covered in twisting tree roots and topped with an electrical tower-style beacon, we will enter the village of Darkmoor. This fictional village is a place where real monsters exist.” The land will have a main retail location, as well as the village’s largest dining location.
The land will also feature a second dining location, themed as the windmill from the Frankenstein story. The publication continued to note that, “Permits indicate that this structure will have gas lines for special flame effects, likely so it can appear that the windmill is on fire.”
The Dark Universe will feature two primary attractions. The primary attraction is an expansive indoor dark ride situated within a grand gothic manor, prominently visible as it towers over the village. The second ride is a spinning roller coaster that swiftly navigates around the shops at the outskirts of the town.
Why Was Danny Elfman Chosen?
Danny Elfman has been one of the greatest composers in Hollywood for decades, but it took him a while to get there. Elfman experienced his first taste of popularity in the late 1970s and early 1980s as the lead singer and songwriter for the new wave band Oingo Boingo; however, it was not the cinematic world that Elfman was dreaming of.
What Elfman didn’t know at the time was that he was going to meet Tim Burton, one of the most unique up-and-coming directors, who would take Elfman along for the ride.
Elfman’s collaboration with Tim Burton began with Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985) and continued with iconic scores for films such as Beetlejuice (1988), Batman (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Alice in Wonderland (2010) and many more. Danny could capture the whimsical, fantastical, and dark atmospheres that Tim Burton’s films alluded to, which contributed significantly to their success.
In 1993 Elfman provided the singing voice for the character Jack Skellington and composed the music for Tim Burton’s stop-motion animated film The Nightmare Before Christmas. The film’s soundtrack, featuring Elfman’s vocals, became a cult classic and is still incredibly popular during the Halloween and Christmas season, even 30 years later.
Danny dabbled in the world of superheroes once again, after the success of his 1989 film, Batman — a score which Elfman won a Grammy for.
Danny then composed the score for Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man (2002) as well as Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007). He also took over for the 2017 Justice League film when the film’s original composer Junkie XL was fired from the film.
While Elfman never stated it, his ties to Burton may have the composer also looking to get away from Disney. Inside the Magic has reached out to Danny Elfman’s team for his thoughts, but have not heard back at the time of this article’s publishing.
As we shared in the past, “Tim Burton won’t work for DC or Marvel simply because of the way they use culture unethically. According to him, large studios like Disney or Warner Bros. take moments of cinema or art and use them in a way that seems dishonorable, like how they took a piece of his 90s Superman movie and shoehorned it into The Flash for the sake of a cameo.”
Related: Disney Ignores Tim Burton’s Wishes, New ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ Announced
Danny Elfman has certainly worked with major companies and theme parks such as Disney in the past, and in fact, his musical score can currently be heard over at Haunted Mansion Holiday at Disneyland, where we can see Jack, Sally, Oogie Boogie, and the rest of the Nightmare Before Christmas gang in the Haunted Mansion overlay.
Most recently, Danny has just come off Beetlejuice 2 alongside Tim Burton and Jenna Ortega.
Considering Elfman’s experience in these darker universes, placing him as the composer of Dark Universe makes a ton of sense for Universal’s upcoming theme park.
For now, we will have to wait until 2025 to learn more about this new score developed by Elfman.
Are you excited to see and hear Danny’s new score at Universal Orlando Resort?