Just a tid bit, but there have been several scores by composers who’s work wasn’t exactly 100% and they have been nominated and won for an Oscar. James Horner in particular.

A great example would be american psycho where 80’s music starts playing at exactly the right moment. If a there’s a song that can highlight a moment in the movie, who cares if it’s original or not, it works.

Hans Zimmer DOES NOT compose the music he is credited for. He hardly EVER does. I’m not sure about Howard, but Zimmer works like this: He owns a huge studio for which he has a ton of employees who compose/create/edit/whatever and do everything that he was doing 20 years ago. He may come up with a motif or a melody on the piano which will go for 2 bars length (meaning its very short and probably shit!) and he’s going to hand this over to his ‘lackeys’ who will compose a score-cue and make it beautiful. Then he’ll listen to it the next day, say “It’s rubbish”, hit his man-servants around a bit, and then send the piece of music over to the director/producer.

How do I know all this? I work in and around this industry…and this is all information coming from people who have worked for and with him in the past. This man is a pretentious asshole. That being said, he absolutely deserves to be. He can act however the hell he wants in this industry, because he’s created some of the best scores in the history of film-audio.

Steven Jablonsky worked like this with/for Hans Zimmer. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told by people who’ve worked with him and/or met him.

Its “original” status was not a concern, however in some of the examples given above some music was used in other productions which caused THOSE movies to be disqualified.

I don’t understand the Oscars.

If its been used before it’s not original. (There are some allowances for titular themes in a franchise)

Otherwise the award would be called “Score”

Just sayin.