Hans Zimmer Criticizes Oscars Rules: Defends ‘Dune: Part Two’ Score as Integral to the Story

Hans Zimmer is a legendary composer known for creating memorable music for movies like The Lion King, Inception, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Dune. His mix of traditional and modern sounds has earned him many awards, including Oscars and Grammys.

However, Zimmer’s score for Dune 2 won’t be part of this year’s awards season. It was disqualified because it reused too much music from the first movie, breaking Academy rules that limit how much old music can be included in a sequel’s soundtrack.

The Academy’s rules for Best Original Score require most of the music to be new, with only a small amount reused from earlier works. Although fans loved the Dune 2 score for its creativity, it reused more than 20% of the first film’s music, breaking the rules and causing its disqualification.

This decision has sparked discussions about whether these rules are fair for sequels. Many consider Zimmer’s Dune 2 score a masterpiece with powerful new music. Similar issues happened with Alan Silvestri’s Avengers: Endgame score, leading to calls for the Academy to update its rules for franchises.

Now Zimmer himself addressed the issue speaking to Variety. Zimmer has expressed frustration with the Academy’s rules on sequel scores, arguing they limit artistic freedom. He explains that Dune 2 is part of a larger story, not a traditional sequel, and changing the musical themes would undermine the storytelling, just as The Lord of the Rings used consistent themes across its trilogy.

Zimmer emphasizes that awards shouldn’t dictate creative decisions and that the rules risk discouraging studios and artists from exploring certain forms of storytelling. He sees the disqualification of his score as not just unfair to him but to the integrity of the movie itself, which relies on thematic continuity over its extended narrative.

We are not a normal sequel … it would make no sense for me to go and change the theme for the characters … What you’re saying is you shouldn’t be allowed to use this form of storytelling … ‘Lord of the Rings’ used this form of storytelling as well. They had one book [and] they needed to divide it into three parts

Here’s the thing, I’m not going to win an Oscar for the second one if I won an Oscar for the first one, which I did … That’s not the point. My point is be careful about these rules because what you’re doing is in the back of the studio’s mind, the Oscars are important, and you’re influencing the way you are saying whether we can create art or not.

You’re saying you can’t do that because we won’t allow art to be nominated. We should have the freedom to find ways to create whatever comes to us

Denis made the right choice by splitting a heavy-duty book into two parts … You have to think of your themes and how you develop them over five hours. So, don’t tell me that makes me ineligible. It really isn’t about me, it’s about the movie.

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Even though Zimmer was disqualified by Oscars and BAFTA awards the score was still recently nominated for Golden Globes as was announced yesterday.

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