The Big Picture

The Marvels composer Laura Karpman discusses her approach to crafting iconic MCU themes. Karpman highlights the importance of crafting a nuanced theme for a big bad, one that captures an emotional range and reflects the complexity of the character rather than simply branding them “villain.” She also reveals she used unconventional methods, such as working with a percussionist who is profoundly deaf and incorporating actual space junk, to create the unique sounds of space (or lack thereof).

One of the vital elements to bringing a superhero movie to the big screen is an iconic theme “that is instantly recognizable, instantly singable.” That’s where Emmy-winning composer Laura Karpman’s superpowers shine. Her work is best known from Marvel’s Disney+ projects like Ms. Marvel and the animated series What If…?. After capturing the essence of Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), Karpman’s next score for Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels is an otherworldly mix inspired by the MCU and the furthest reaches of the universe.

The Marvels is DaCosta’s sequel to 2019’s Captain Marvel, which first introduced Brie Larson as Carol Danvers. After reclaiming her identity from the Kree, Carol’s revenge on their former ruler, the Supreme Intelligence (Annette Bening), has unexpected ramifications that keep Captain Marvel busy maintaining the universe’s balance. While on a mission to a wormhole connected to a Kree revolutionary, her powers somehow become entangled with two other superheroes on Earth, her niece Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) and Khan’s Ms. Marvel. Now the three will have to stand together to defeat a new foe (Zawe Ashton) whose powers can match and rival Captain Marvel’s.

In an interview with Collider’s Perri Nemiroff, Karpman details how she created a score as powerful as this Marvel team-up, one that evokes the mystery and might of space. She explains how the score incorporates actual “space junk,” reveals which previous MCU themes inspired the energy for this trio, discusses the use of drums throughout her score, and explains how she went about creating a pitch-perfect theme for the film’s villain. She also teases her laugh-out-loud work for the Flerken and what fans of X-Men should keep their ears open for.

Check out their interview in the video above, or you can read the full transcript below.

Marvels Carol Danvers gets her powers entangled with those of Kamala Khan and Monica Rambeau, forcing them to work together to save the universe. Release Date November 10, 2023 Director Nia DaCosta Cast Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Iman Vellani, Zawe Ashton, Teyonah Parris Rating P3-13 Runtime 105 minutes Main Genre Superhero
PERRI NEMIROFF: You’ve worked with Marvel before, of course, on What If…? and Ms. Marvel. Two questions about that – what is something about the composing process that stayed consistent from project to project to project, but then, what’s a new challenge that was specific to The Marvels?

LAURA KARPMAN: Great question. The thing that stays consistent in any film project, but particularly the MCU, is you have to write an iconic theme. You’ve got to have two to four bars of music, something that is instantly recognizable, instantly singable. So, that is consistent across projects. You’ve got to write that theme, people have got to love it, and it’s got to be able to be associated. It’s a signature for each project.

For this one, for The Marvels, I think figuring out what space sounds like was the big one. There’s actually no sound in space. Sound is felt in space and not heard. So, how do you do that? I mean, there are a lot of ways, which I can get into if you’re interested.

Image via Marvel Studios

I am because I think I know one of those ways.

KARPMAN: You tell me then!

I read a lot about the drumming in the movie, which makes all the sense in the world to me, and I’m very excited to hear it in the context of the full feature.

KARPMAN: I’ll tell you about it. A lot of the sounds of space were created in conjunction with this incredible percussionist, Evelyn Glennie. Here’s the thing about Evelyn, she’s profoundly deaf. When she plays, she actually doesn’t wear shoes. She feels the sound through her body, which is exactly how you feel it in space. It’s so crazy. So we started creating sounds together that were not like anything that you have ever heard before. And because of the way that she listens, and it’s a very physical thing for her, I think that that permeates every aspect of the sonic life of this project. So that was one way. The other way, which is way sillier, is we went to a prop house in Burbank and we rented space junk, literally stuff that fell out of the sky.

What is the most random piece of space junk you found, and did it make it into the sound of the movie?

KARPMAN: Yeah, it did! I think these titanium disks, which are really weird because they’re super light. They look like they’d be heavy, but they’re really light and you can bow them, and it’s this incredible sound. It’s like nothing you’ve ever heard.

Oh, you didn’t just use it as inspiration. You actually used these physical pieces of space junk!

KARPMAN: Oh no! Basically, I went there and we figured out how you could make sounds out of them. We went there with a bow and various beaters and stuff like that, and anything that you could make a sound out of we rented and then used in the film.

That just emphasizes that music can come from literally anywhere. I love it.

KARPMAN: No, absolutely. Listen, we could go around this room and make a score for a film with just what’s hanging – these lights, your shoes. I don’t know what else is hanging out here, but we could play anything in here and make a cool score.

Image via Marvel Studios

The next time I cross paths with you at a junket, we’re not talking about the movie, we are making a junket score.

KARPMAN: We can do it. Let’s go!

I wanted to go back to the idea of Marvel themes because I was reading that you went back and listened to some very iconic ones. Is there any particular past theme that you found being most influential when you started to tackle the themes in The Marvels?

KARPMAN: I think The Avengers maybe because this is an Avenger-style film. So I think the energy and also this idea of creating something new for a team rather than kind of focusing on individual characters, I think that was something that influenced me a lot. I think that’s a part of it. I think the energy of that plays a role in this. And I think Alan Silvestri is really good at getting a motor going, a musical motor, and so I think that that had an influence on me. But I also go to a lot of weird musical sources like, this is gonna sound completely crazy, but there’s this moment in the beginning of an opera by this English composer, Benjamin Britten, that are these strings kind of sliding around and that had a huge influence on me. The theme opens that way.

Image via Marvel Studios

I want to jump to crafting a theme for a villain. What pointers, tips or tricks would you give to another composer looking to craft a theme for a villain that doesn’t just say, “This is a bad guy,” but rather, reflects the fact that that character has nuance and isn’t just “villain” and nothing more?

KARPMAN: Well, I think that you captured exactly the point; with a hero and with a villain, you wanna have something that can cover an emotional range, right? Because not every villain is totally bad and not every hero is totally good. That doesn’t make for an interesting movie, and it certainly doesn’t make for an interesting score. So I think going for something unusual for the villain was important. I think the instrumentation that I chose was quite unusual, and I think having something that kind of slithered was really important for this particular person.

I like a lot of the score that I was able to check out, but that’s the track that I’ve been re-listening to the most since I received it. I love it.

KARPMAN: Yeah, it’s pretty groovy.

Image via Disney

Do the Flerken have a theme, and if not, what specific sounds were you using most for them?

KARPMAN: I am going to leave that to the audience to find out when you see it, mostly because there will be some wonderful surprises there. Really big moments.

I will take that. I want all the big moments for the Flerken!

KARPMAN: You will love it. You will love it. You will laugh out loud.

The answer to this question might just be no, but I was reading the credits for the film and I noticed that some of John Ottman’s scores from the X-Men movies were there. Is that something you got to work with, and if so, how did you go about incorporating them in your own original score?

KARPMAN: I think we’ll leave that to big surprises, too.

[Laughs] Okay!

KARPMAN: Go Thursday night and you can find out all the answers to these questions.

Again, another excellent tease.

I’ll end with a fun question. Given what the Marvels go through in this movie, if you had the opportunity to swap places with two other artists in this industry to walk in their shoes and experience their day-to-day, what two artists would you choose and why?

KARPMAN: God, what a great question. There’s a question I’ve never been asked.

My job is done!

KARPMAN: Steven Spielberg. I think maybe to really feel that kind of directorial finesse, I think, is something that he has that’s amazing. And another person – I don’t know. How about Dorothy Arzner? And you’re gonna ask me, “Who is Dorothy Arzner?” Dorothy Arzner was the first woman to be admitted to the DGA. She was a director in the Golden Age of Hollywood, and she directed tons of movies, and how she got away with what she got away with, I would love to jump into her body and figure that out.

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