Age: 73
male
Daniel Robert Elfman (born May 29, 1953) is an American film composer, singer, songwriter, and musician. He came to prominence as the lead vocalist and primary songwriter for the new wave band Oingo Boingo in the early 1980s. Since scoring his first studio film in 1985, Elfman has garnered international recognition for composing over 100 feature film scores, as well as compositions for television, stage productions, and the concert hall. Elfman has frequently worked with directors Tim Burton, Sam Raimi, and Gus Van Sant, contributing music to nearly 20 Burton projects, including Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, Mars Attacks!, Sleepy Hollow, Big Fish, and Alice in Wonderland, as well as scoring Raimi's Darkman, A Simple Plan, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Oz the Great and Powerful, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Van Sant's Academy Award-winning films Good Will Hunting and Milk. He wrote music for all of the Men in Black and Fifty Shades of Grey franchise films, the songs and score for Henry Selick's animated musical The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the themes for the popular television series Desperate Housewives and The Simpsons. Among his honours are four Oscar nominations, three Emmy Awards, a Grammy, seven Saturn Awards for Best Music, the 2002 Richard Kirk Award, the 2015 Disney Legend Award, the Max Steiner Film Music Achievement Award in 2017, and the Society of Composers & Lyricists Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022. Description above from the Wikipedia article Danny Elfman, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Danny Elfman
Composer
for Composer in Alex Proyas's Casper (1993)
Suggested by nightmare1398
For those who don't know, Alex Proyas, the director of The Crow (1994) was approached to direct the 1990s live action Casper movie. And described it as being more darker, less comedic and more deconstructism than the final product. He described his version to be inspired by his childhood favorite, The Wizard of Oz (1939) as a timeless, fantasy story that's also compelling and emotional for kids. But with a darker tone? So basically Return to Oz? Awesome!!!!! However he left as the last minute due to creative differences. But the new director had stated he already had concept art and models sent to him for the movie so it's possible Whipstaff and the ghosts were already based on Alex Proyas's vision. The house's strange design looks seamlessly if it was in The Crow. Although he didn't direct the movie, he claimed he saw the final product but felt the emotions came off forced and was a wasted opportunity for the studio to tell a more subtle and mature story like his movies are. And he went on to make Dark City instead. Shame. :( Side note: Casper was never intended to turn into a human at the end until the last minute by the new director on set. So this means there's no human Casper nor a red angel since that was also his idea.
