The Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania digital score soundtrack is available now from Hollywood Records. Produced and composed by Christophe Beck, the album's Executive Score Producers are Peyton Reed, Kevin Feige, Stephen Broussard, and Dave Jordan.
Christophe Beck, the composer behind the scores for both Ant-Man and Ant-Man and The Wasp, returned to create the score for Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania/ According to director Peyton Reed, who worked with Beck on Reed's first film, Bring It On, Beck was asked to build an iconic Marvel hero theme for Ant-Man, which was no small feat. "Chris came up with that theme and I thought it was fantastic," says Reed. "And now, eight years later, that theme still resonates. I'm really proud of what Chris has done on these movies."
Beck says he was thrilled to reteam with Reed. "That's one of the joys of working with directors repeatedly over time, especially on a continuing franchise," he says. "I've also really enjoyed working more closely with Peyton than ever on this film and deepening our friendship alongside our collaborative relationship."
Filmmakers endeavored to align the new movie with the Ant-Man movies that came before it, and the music plays a huge role in doing just that. "Ant-Man, The Wasp and Hank Pym each have themes that are well-established, and they are used liberally in Quantumania" says Beck. "It was important to Peyton and me to connect this film to the others musically by continuing their thematic threads. I also continue the use of odd meters that I established in the first two films—phrases and rhythms that use five or seven beats to the bar as opposed to the more common three or four."
While embracing these themes, Reed and Beck also wanted the music to help separate the new adventure from those that came before it. "Quantumania takes place almost entirely in a separate universe from our own," says Beck. "Peyton and I worked very hard to make the film and score feel new and different from the previous two Ant-Man installments while retaining their spirit and what makes the characters lovable and familiar."
Taking the storytelling to subatomic locales called for a special approach to the music. "We were excited about doing this film on an epic scale," says Reed. "Chris just ran with it. He created different sounds within the Quantum Realm."
Indeed. Beck didn't hold back, employing some unusual instrumentation and techniques to capture the bizarre and far-reaching setting. "Peyton and I have always been a fan of strange and experimental sounds created using technology, new and old," Beck says. "We dabbled in it here and there in the previous Ant-Man films, but Quantumania really gave us an opportunity to dive deeper. I dusted off some old synthesizers and took advantage of more recent instruments and went to town! I also used some heavily processed real instruments for a new theme for a particular character—a grossly detuned violin provides a nice juxtaposition between the new and the familiar."
The resulting score was recorded at Abbey Road Studios with an 80-piece orchestra and Tim Davies conducting. Additional recording was done at Synchron Stage Vienna in Austria with additional conducting by Gottfried Rabl. "Chris knocked it out of the park in terms of the score for this movie," says Reed. "He is immensely talented as a composer, and I think this was the most fun we've had working together on a movie because we were able to paint on this really large canvas."