Troy Soundtrack
In 2004, Yared's score to the movie Troy (which he had spent nearly a year working on) was rejected (less than a month before the film's opening) due to the poor reception by an audience at a test screening. The test audience were said to have found Yared's music too "brassy and bold". James Horner, the composer of the scores for such films as Braveheart and Titanic was then hired to create a replacement score in less than four weeks.
Yared expressed his dismay at the score's rejection in an open letter which was posted on his website. He said that the score which the test audience had heard was not yet finished or mixed properly, and that the studio had given him no opportunity to alter his score in light of the audience reaction.
Horner harshly criticised both Yared's score and Yared personally, calling the score "atrocious", and saying "And it wasn't because Gabriel's not a gifted writer, it's because he just doesn't have any knowledge of writing film scores. Real film scores like that. And it was like -- It was so corny. It was unbelievable." The Director's Cut DVD had one cue re-inserted for a funeral scene (a experimental female vocal piece, featured twice in his score).
Warner Bros. studio still currently owns the rights to Yared's Troy score and an official recording is not currently available and may never be (although selections from the score were briefly posted on Yared's website and private promotional CD).
Film score critic Christian Clemmensen of Filmtracks.com felt that Yared's work for Troy was far superior to what Horner had written, giving Horner's score a 3 star rating and Yared's a 5 star rating, saying that it was "outstanding," and called it the "pinnacle of Yared's career."
Read more about this topic: Gabriel Yared