Hans Zimmer is one of the greatest composers in history, so how did he end up scoring a Mr Beast YouTube video?
There will be many people who have never heard of Jimmy Donaldson, but as Mr Beast, the American is known for having spent the past decade building one of the largest channels on YouTube. Donaldson’s channel usually involves expensive stunts and has over 123 million subscribers, making it one of the top channels on the platform. That number is only likely to increase, and could be aided by the internet personality’s latest video, featuring a soundtrack by the legendary composer Hans Zimmer.
While the combination of a YouTube star and one of the greatest film composers in history seems like the stuff of dreams, the collaboration came about in just a 12-day span when the pair happened to be in Antarctica at the same time. Donaldson had traveled to the frozen continent for his latest YouTube stunt and while spending 50 hours in the Union Glacier area, he discovered that Zimmer was also in the same area. According to Donaldson, he took the opportunity to pitch the composer to score the video of his time in Antarctica, and within a few hours everything was settled. In a statement, Donaldson said:
“The moment I heard that Hans was also there, I knew I had to work with him on this one way or another. No one else would understand what it’s like to survive in such a crazy place! We had to get it done super fast, and when we reached out he was just as thrilled.
Zimmer also confirmed his involvement in the video, along with his own Frozen Planet II collaborators James Everingham and Adam Lukas, which was released on December 24 on the Mr Beast YouTube channel. In his own statement, Zimmer said:
‘If MrBeast challenges you, you can bet it’s going to be crazy…’ Score my Antarctica video in a few days, please, Hans? Challenge accepted!!’ We had a lot of fun and we hope you enjoy it.”
Hans Zimmer is one of the greatest composers of all time
.jpg)
As a composer behind the scores for films like The Lion King, Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Dunkirk, Hans Zimmer has become one of the best-known composers in the industry. After being nominated for 10 Academy Awards during his career, Zimmer won his second Best Original Score award this year for his work on Denis Villeneuve’s remake of Frank Herbert’s Dune. This comes 27 years after the composer’s last win for his iconic score from Disney’s The lionking.
The Dune soundtrack was produced by WaterTower Music and released in July 2021 in three versions, all written by Zimmer. On being able to release an album in Dolby Atmos, Hans Zimmer said: “I was inspired to look at this music in a different way and to take the audience on a journey beyond the film. To fully experience these unique sounds and this soundtrack. show, I felt it should be available through an immersive technology that uses spatial audio, so the decision was made to deliver it in Dolby Atmos.”