At age 26, PRINCE became the youngest winner of a scoring award when he won best original song score, for 1984’s Purple Rain.
B
EFORE COMPOSER
Ludwig Göransson even
received his engraved
Academy Award for
winning best origi-
nal score in 2019 for
Black Panther, the win was already
paying dividends.
“The next day after the Oscars, I
got the call from Christopher Nolan’s
people saying that Chris wanted to
hire him on his next movie, Tenet,”
says Amos Newman, Göransson’s
agent at WME.
While receiving any award is good
for the ego and the mantelpiece,
the Oscar is seen as the pinnacle for
composers — and most likely to yield
the biggest financial payoff. “If you’re
a recording artist and making records,
a Grammy is your Oscar in a way, and
it makes a difference in those careers,”
says Laura Engel, a partner at Kraft-
Engel Management who represents
two-time Oscar recipient Alexandre
Desplat and four-time nominee Danny
Elfman. However, she adds, “I haven’t
really felt that a Grammy makes
much of a difference in a film com-
poser’s career.”
The benefits aren’t always as tan-
gible, but a win can provide an agent
with “ammunition,” says WME’s
Newman. “It gives us the opportunity
to say, ‘Hey, my guy won the Oscar,
and his price has gone up.’ It’s an ex-
cuse to call people about your client.”
Since scoring fees are negotiable
and vary greatly depending on a
film’s budget and the composer’s
reputation, Engel says it’s impos-
sible to assign a dollar value to a win.
However, an Oscar victory can drive
up the demand for a composer, and
since “there’s only so many films a
year a composer can do, those fees
have to be at a certain level, because
a film is taking up a very precious
amount of time,” she says.
The win can also help reposition
musicians not necessarily associated
with film. When Nine Inch Nails’
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross won
the statuette for best original score
for 2010 film The Social Network, “it
made a pretty significant statement
in their case, since they came from
a rock background, that composing
for film was now open to outsiders,”
says Newman. “Their win created
a much greater awareness of them
as composers.”
Similarly, Anthony Rossomando,
who swept the 2019 awards season
by winning a best original song Oscar
(as well as a Golden Globe and a
Grammy) for co-writing “Shallow”
from A Star Is Born, calls the Oscar
the “holy grail.” The Libertines and
Dirty Pretty Things veteran wasn’t
someone who “practiced an accep-
tance speech my whole life in the
shower,” so the rock musician was
taken aback by the opportunities the
win provided. “I have personal rela-
tionships with all the heads of music
at all the major studios now,” he says.
“That’s obviously a big change.”
Rossomando notes that the award
wins, as well as “Shallow” topping
the charts in several countries,
contributed to his ability to pick and
choose projects. “Let’s be real: That’s
how it works,” he says. “You have a
success, and people want to work
with you. It has really allowed me to
do whatever I want.”
As glorious as a win may be, agents
say what matters more is consis-
tency. For example, A-list composer
Thomas Newman has been nominat-
ed 15 times for work on such films as
American Beauty, WALL·E, Bridge of
Spies and this year’s 1917 , but hasn’t
won. A win would not likely increase
his marketability. “Being continuous-
ly nominated is more important than
the odd win,” says Amos Newman,
reeling off names of one-time win-
ners who have seldom been heard
from since. “When you see compos-
ers nominated over and over again,
that is a harbinger of great work and
the definition of a great career. The
odd win doesn’t necessarily move
the needle. In the long run, I don’t
know if it has an appreciable affect
on their career.”
Asked whether they would take a
high box-office gross over an Oscar
win for a client, every agent picked the
big gross. “I always prefer people who
score successful movies,” says Engel’s
partner, Richard Kraft, who represents
songwriter-composers Justin Paul and
Benj Pasek, the Oscar winners for best
original song for 2016’s La La Land
who were nominated for The Great-
est Showman. “Successful movies,
critically acclaimed movies and scores
that capture people’s imaginations are
the trifecta of career-building. A lot
of winners become answers to Trivial
Pursuit questions.”
There is, however, one undeniable
result that winning an Oscar brings,
adds Kraft with a laugh: “You know
for certain what the first sentence of
your obituary will start with.”
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Why multiple Oscar
nominations are more
valuable than a single win
BY MELINDA NEWMAN
“A lot of winners
become answers
to Trivial Pursuit
questions.”
—RICHARD KRAFT,
KRAFT-ENGEL MANAGEMENT
WHAT’S
AN OSCAR
WORTH?
66 BILLBOARD • JANUARY 25, 2020
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ILLUSTRATION BY SÉBASTIEN THIBAULT