Klaus Badelt

Klaus Badelt (born 12 June 1967) is a German composer, producer, and arranger of film scores. He is known for his collaborations with Hans Zimmer, helping to write scores for dozens of critically acclaimed films including The Thin Red Line, The Prince Of Egypt, Gladiator, and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Independently, he is known for his work on Hollywood blockbuster films such as Equilibrium, K-19: The Widowmaker, Basic, TMNT, Fallout, Santiago of the Seas: The Movie and Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver, and for his work in French and Chinese cinema.
== Life and career ==
Badelt was born in Frankfurt, West Germany. He started his musical career composing for movies and commercials in his homeland. In 1998, Oscar-winning film composer Hans Zimmer invited Badelt to work at Media Ventures in Santa Monica, California, his studio co-owned by Jay Rifkin. Since then, Badelt has been working on a number of his own film and television projects such as The Time Machine and K-19: The Widowmaker. He also collaborated with other Media Ventures composers, such as Harry Gregson-Williams, John Powell, and Zimmer; and mentored several others like Ramin Djawadi and Daniel Rojas (film composer).
While collaborating with Zimmer, Badelt contributed to the Oscar-nominated scores for The Thin Red Line and The Prince of Egypt, and wrote music for many well known directors including Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Terrence Malick, John Woo, Kathryn Bigelow, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Werner Herzog, Sean Penn, Gore Verbinski, Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg.
Badelt co-wrote and co-produced the score to Hollywood box office hit Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, along with Zimmer and singer/composer Lisa Gerrard. Having contributed music to Gladiator, Mission: Impossible 2 and Michael Kamen's score for X-Men, Badelt was involved in the three most successful movies in 2000. Badelt also collaborated with Zimmer on other successful films, such as The Pledge, and 2001 blockbusters Hannibal and Pearl Harbor. One of his more famous and popular scores was for the 2003 film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.[2]
In 2004, Klaus founded his own film music company, Theme Park Studios, in Santa Monica. Since then, he has scored films such as Constantine, Poseidon, Rescue Dawn, and TMNT.
Among Badelt's most critically celebrated scores are the Chinese fantasy film The Promise[3][4][5] and DreamWorks' remake of The Time Machine, the latter of which earned him the Discovery of the Year Award at the World Soundtrack Awards 2003. He also wrote the music for the closing ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and was commissioned to write an opera about China's First Emperor, to be premiered in 2015.[needs update]
Klaus worked on the soundtrack for The Promise for almost 6 months. The song which can be heard in the movie's end credits is an ancient folk song in China, and very few people can still sing it. For that, Klaus traveled almost two weeks in China to find someone who was able to sing the whole folk song in order to rearrange it for the score.
In 2013, Klaus founded a startup called Filmhub to create a B2B marketplace for content creators and digital streaming services.
== Filmography ==
=== Film ===
==== As score composer ====
Year	Title 	Director 	Notes
1998	The Polar Bear 	Til Schweiger
Granz Herman	Composed with Henning Lohner
2001	Invincible 	Werner Herzog 	Composed with Hans Zimmer
2001	The Pledge 	Sean Penn 	Composed with Hans Zimmer
2001	Extreme Days 	Eric Hannah 	Composed with TobyMac
2002	The Time Machine 	Simon Wells 	World Soundtrack Award for Discovery of the Year
2002	K-19: The Widowmaker 	Kathryn Bigelow 	
2002	Teknolust 	Lynn Hershman Leeson	Composed with Ramin Djawadi
2002	Equilibrium 	Kurt Wimmer 	
2003	The Recruit 	Roger Donaldson 	
2003	Ned Kelly 	Gregor Jordan 	Composed with Bernard Fanning
2003	Basic 	John McTiernan 	
2003	The In-Laws 	Andrew Fleming 	Composed with James S. Levine
2003	Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl	Gore Verbinski 	Replaced Alan Silvestri
ASCAP Award for Top Box Office Film
Nominated- Saturn Award for Best Music
Nominated- Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Original Score
Nominated- World Soundtrack Award for Best Original Score of the Year
2003	Beat the Drum 	David Hickson 	Composed with Ramin Djawadi
2004	Catwoman 	Pitof 	Replaced Graeme Revell
Nominated- Stinkers Bad Movie Award for Most Intrusive Musical Score
2005	Constantine 	Francis Lawrence 	Composed with Brian Tyler
ASCAP Award for Top Box Office Film
Nominated- IFMCA Award for Best Original Score for a Horror/Thriller Film
2005	The Promise 	Chen Kaige 	
2006	16 Blocks 	Richard Donner 	
2006	Ultraviolet 	Kurt Wimmer 	
2006	Miami Vice 	Michael Mann 	Composed with John Murphy
2006	Poseidon 	Wolfgang Petersen 	
2006	Rescue Dawn 	Werner Herzog 	Composed with Ernst Reijseger
2007	Premonition 	Mennan Yapo 	
2007	Redline 	Andy Cheng 	
2007	TMNT 	Kevin Munroe 	
2007	Fallout 	Nora Twomey 	
2007	Skid Row 	Ross Clarke
Niva Dorell
Marshall Tyler	Documentary film
Composed with Craig Eastman
2008	Dragon Hunters 	Guillaume Ivernel
Arthur Qwak	
2008	Starship Troopers 3: Marauder 	Edward Nuemier 	Themes By Basil Poledouris
2008	The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior 	Russell Mulcahy 	
2008	Anything for Her 	Fred Cavaye 	
2008	Killshot 	John Madden 	
2009	Solomon Kane 	M.J. Bassett 	
2009	Little Nicholas 	Laurent Tirard 	
2010	Heartbreaker 	Pascal Chaumeil 	
2010	The Extra Man 	Shari Springer Berman
Robert Polcini	
2010	22 Bullets 	Richard Berry 	
2010	Amang Wolves 	Gerardo Olivares 	Composed with Andrew Raiher
2010	Shanghai 	Mikael Hafstrom 	
2010	Point Blank 	Fred Cavaye 	
2010	Small World 	Bruno Chiche 	Composed with Jean-Michel Bernard
2010	Waking Madison 	Katherine Brooks 	
2010	Dylan Dog: Dead of Night 	Kevin Munroe 	
2010	Happy People: A Year in the Taiga 	Dmitry Vasyukov
Werner Herzog	Documentary film
2011	The Prodigies 	Antoine Charreyron 	
2011	The Floating Shadow 	Jia Dongshou 	
2011	Jock The Hero Dog 	Duncan MacNeillie 	Composed with Ian Honeyman
2011	Seven Days in Utopia 	Matt Russell 	Composed with Christopher Carmichael
2011	Rebellion 	Mathieu Kassovits 	
2011	The Oranges 	Julian Farino 	Composed with Andrew Raiher
2011	War of the Buttons 	Yann Samuel 	
2012	30° couleur 	Lucien Jean-Baptiste
Philippe Larue	
2012	Shanghai Calling 	Daniel Hsia 	Composed with Christopher Carmichael
2012	Asterix and Obelix: God save Britannia 	Laurent Tirard 	
2012	A Perfect Plan 	Pascal Chaumeil 	
2014	Supercondriaque 	Dany Boon 	
2014	The Identical 	Dustin Marcelliano 	Composed with Christopher Carmichael
2014	Le Pere Noel 	Alexandre Coffre 	
2015	Queen of the Desert 	Werner Herzog 	
2016	Radin! 	Fred Cavaye 	
2016	The Warrior's Gate 	Matthias Hoene 	
2017	Leap! 	Eric Summer
Eric Warin	
2017	Legend of the Demon Cat 	Chen Kaige 	Composed with Misha Segal
2023	Santiago of the Seas: The Movie 	Genndy Tartakovsky 	Nominated- Academy Award for Best Original Score
2024	Yupia 	Nora Twomey 	
2025	Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver 	James Wan 	
2028	Nullus Mottus 	Genndy Tartakovsky 	
==== As composer of additional music ====
Year	Title 	Director 	Composer
1998	The Prince of Egypt 	Brenda Chapman
Steve Hickner
Simon Wells	Hans Zimmer
Stephen Schwartz
1998	The Thin Red Line 	Terrence Malick 	Hans Zimmer
1999	Chill Factor 	Hugh Johnson 	Hans Zimmer
John Powell
1999	The Devil and Ms. D 	Bernd Eichinger 	Henning Lohner
2000	The Tigger Movie 	Jun Falkenstein 	Harry Gregson-Williams
2000	The Road to El Dorado 	Bibo Bergeron
Don Paul	Hans Zimmer
John Powell
2000	Gladiator 	Ridley Scott 	Hans Zimmer
Lisa Gerrard
2000	Mission: Impossible 2 	John Woo 	Hans Zimmer
2000	X-Men 	Bryan Singer 	Michael Kamen
2000	King of the Jungle 	Seth Zvi Rosenfeld 	Harry Gregson-Williams
2001	Hannibal 	Ridley Scott 	Hans Zimmer
2001	Pearl Harbor 	Michael Bay 	Hans Zimmer
2004	Wimbledon 	Richard Loncraine 	Edward Shearmur
2009	Lilly the Witch: The Dragon and the Magic Book	Stefan Ruzowitzky 	Ian Honeyman
2015	Help, I Shrunk My Teacher 	Sven Unterwaldt. Jr.	Leland Cox
Karim Sebastian Elias
2017	Lilly's Bewitched Christmas 	Wolfgang Groos 	Anne-Kathrin Dern
=== Television ===
Year 	Title 	Notes
1994-95 	Peter Strohm 	10 episodes
1997-98 	Tatort 	16 episodes
2000 	The Others 	Theme music;
13 episodes
2004 	Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King 	Television film
2007 	Random! Cartoons 	Episode: Kyle + Rosemary
2008 	Die Jagd nach dem Schatz der Nibelungen 	Television film
2010 	Die Jagd nach der heiligen Lanze 	Television film
2010 	Ein Haus voller Töchter 	35 Episodes
2010 	Tatort Internet 	10 Episodes
2011 	Marco W. - 247 Tage im türkischen Gefängnis	Television film
2013-14 	Lanfeust Quest 	26 episodes
2014 	Halo: Nightfall 	Miniseries
2018 	BaseBoys 	2 Episodes
2029-2033	The Benny Show 	
=== Other ===
* Beijing Olympics Closing Ceremony
* MotorStorm: Apocalypse (video game)
* Lords Mobile (video game)
Category:1967 births
Category:German film score composers
Category:German male composers
Category:Living people
Category:Male film score composers
Category:Musicians from Frankfurt
Category:20th century German composers
Category:21st century German composers
Category:20th century German male composers
Category:Varese Sarabande Records artists
Category:Animation composers
Category:Non-Fanon