Warning: SPOILERS for the projects discussed below.The composers behind Mr & Mrs Smith, Moana 2, Star Wars Outlaws, and more gathered at Beverly Hills’ London H๏τel on May 30 for the ASCAP Screen Music Awards, and ScreenRant was there for the celebration. For those who don’t know, ASCAP is one of a very few organizations that help ensure songwriters and composers are actually paid for their work when their music is heard on the radio, performed in venues, or placed in films, television, and games. Each year, ASCAP recognizes its members across different musical genres and areas who have accomplished truly impressive things.

This year, honorees included David Fleming (The Last of Us, Mr & Mrs Smith), Emily Bear and Abigail Barlow (Moana 2), Michael Abels (The Acolyte), Jeff Toyne (Palm Royale), and Gordy Haab (Indiana Jones and the Great Circle). Those composers gathered to receive their honors and celebrate their work, with many walking the red carpet to discuss the projects that got them there. With their projects already out in the world, the composers were eager to discuss how they were put together and what’s on the horizon.

ScreenRant spoke with some of the top film, TV, and game composers of today on the 2025 ASCAP Screen Music Awards red carpet. The people behind the music of Moana 2, Mr & Mrs Smith, Star Wars Outlaws, Survivor, Agatha All Along, and more shared their experiences as well as a few updates about their award-nominated projects. Plus, ASCAP president Paul Williams weighed in on the importance of celebrating screen music.

Will Only Murders In The Building Season 5 Bring Back Musicals?

“There’s Always That Element Of Surprise With John Hoffman”

Only Murders in the Building season 5 is on the way–proof of the continued success of the Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez crime comedy series. Composer Siddhartha Khosla has worked on the show since season one, and even made his first appearance on screen in the show for a quick cameo at the start of the fourth season. “John Hoffman, who co-created the show, asked me if I would be his piano player in a scene,” Siddhartha Khosla said.

“I think it was just a little Easter egg for himself to know that, when he looks back on the show one day, that’s his composer,” Khosla continued, “That was a cool experience. I got to hang out with the guys, and I got to bond with Steve Martin over music. It was a really special thing.”

Khosla shared more about his budding relationship with Martin, saying, “We had a lot of wonderful bonding moments. He showed me his bluegrᴀss record and he’s like, ‘Come listen to this. What do you think?’ Then I got an opportunity to sit on the piano and play him some themes that I had written for his character, and he was like, ‘I remember that. It was season one when he was flipping the omelet.’ It was a beautiful meeting between the composer and who [they’re] scoring.”

“There’s always that element of surprise with John Hoffman, so you never know.”

Only Murders in the Building season 3 was its most musical, with an actual in-show stage production featuring songs written by Broadway composers Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, Marc Shaiman, and Scott Wittman. When asked if more of that could be on the way, Khosla said, “I’m not going to say anything. Maybe. Maybe.”

David Fleming Gives A Mr & Mrs Smith Season 2 Update & Talks Jim Henson Idea Man

The Composer Also Took Home Documentary Score Of The Year

One of the winners at the ASCAP Screen Music Awards was David Fleming, who won “Documentary Score of the Year” for his work on Jim Henson Idea Man. Those who know Fleming’s work on projects like Damsel and The Last of Us may be surprised to hear the jazz-heavy score for the documentary, the musical tone of which “was one thing I was really worried about,” Fleming revealed.

“I knew if I tried an authentic jazz score, I would get in trouble,” the composer said, continuing, “But I had an idea early on that was like, ‘What if we were to make what, in my mind, was going to start as a minimal score, but use jazz instruments?’” Fleming shared that a big source of inspiration was the late New York-based composer Moondog who, as described by Fleming, was “this old dude who used to wear a giant viking helmet and play on the streets of New York.”

Fleming continued: “He was very across genres, and he would do minimalism with jazz instruments. All the jazz guys loved him and Philip Glᴀss and that crew loved him. Everyone respected him, but he was just this crazy nut. So there’s a lot of music in the Jim Henson thing that’s inspired by Moondog.”

The composer also shared an update on Mr & Mrs Smith season 2, about which there has been very little news since its 2024 renewal. “They definitely haven’t started filming it yet,” Fleming said, “So I know basically as much as you do, but I think I’ll be on it. I know they’ve written it. I can’t wait for it. I think there’s a lot of moving parts to figure out on that one.”

Moana 2’s Biggest Cut Song & The Rock’s Rapping Explained By Emily Bear

“There’s One That I’m Especially Heartbroken About”

Moana 2 songwriter Emily Bear took some time to discuss her work on the Disney sequel, in a conversation that began with a song she was “heartbroken” to have to cut when what originally began as a Disney+ series was reshaped into a feature film: “There’s one especially that I’m heartbroken about called ‘Two Pieces’. It was actually the main ballad where ‘Beyond’, which is our big ballad song, is in the movie.”

“[‘Beyond’] was at the end of the movie and our old song, ‘Two Pieces’–[well,] we didn’t even agree on a тιтle–was at the beginning of the movie,” Bear shared, continuing, “It was in the production for two and a half years and then it got taken out pretty late.”

The song ultimately was a casualty of an ever-changing story, said Bear: “The story evolved so much, as it does in animation, [and] there was a certain point after one of the screenings where we just all looked at each other and were like, ‘This doesn’t make sense anymore.’ The reason why she was going kind of changed, and so the big ‘I Want’ song didn’t really [fit.] We knew what her decision was going to be, and the song was about her being in the middle of those two decisions.”

Bear also shared her experience working with Dwayne Johnson on his song “Can I Get A Chee Hoo?” About being in the studio with The Rock, she said, “He’s great. He’s as nice and as hardworking as everyone says he is.”

Johnson also worked with Bear and her co-writer Abigail Barlow on how certain lyrics were delivered. “Because he is so Maui himself, there were a couple lines where [he’d hear] the way that we had it sung in the demo and [be like], ‘Actually, I feel like it should be sung more like this,’ or ‘It should be like that,’” Bear said, “And we take that into account because he’s lived with this character for so long. Obviously there’s a lot of cooks in the kitchen, but a lot of it made it in.”

Emily Bear also shared what’s exciting to her about potentially continuing on in the Moana universe: “It just keeps getting bigger. Now, with the introduction of all of these different cultures from the Polynesian Islands, there are so many different ways the music can take us. And, I feel like, as you meet new people, you’re allowed to take creative freedoms and expand the sonic world, like what we did with our new characters.”

How Star Wars Outlaws Expands Series Lore Through Music

Wilbert Roget II & Cody Matthew Johnson Filled Out Lando Calrissian’s Backstory & Created Native Kijimi Instruments

Wilbert Roget II and Cody Matthew Johnson, who respectively created the musical score and cantina songs for Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws, earned a Video Game Score of the Year nomination for their work. The immense amount of work that went into scoring that game saw Roget, Johnson, and additional composers Jon Everist and Kazuma Jinnouchi writing hours of music tailored to the game’s planets and peoples.

Because Cody Matthew Johnson worked specifically crafting in-universe music, he went even deeper in making sure his compositions could live in the Star Wars universe. He revealed his deepest dive into established lore, which all revolved around the planet Kijimi: “I actually did the songs for Kijimi at the end. I found them more challenging. Something like Tatooine had a lot of established sounds, so it was clear what we had to reference, [and with] the newer planets, you could kind of explore and figure out what you want to do. But Kijimi existed in between.”

“We actually–spoiler alert–know how Kijimi ends,” Johnson continued, saying, “So [I was] trying to think about culture progressing up until right before Kijimi explodes in the sequel trilogy. I did a lot of research about Kijimi trying to lead up to it, and I was finding stuff about the Dai Bendu monks being Jedi progenitors who had this relationship to numerology and subdivisions and multiplications of nine. So, a lot of the music, instruments, intervals, and melodic phrases revolve around the number nine. That was the deepest I [went] to incorporate [Star Wars] lore into the music.

Star Wars Outlaws has also promised multiple pieces of downloadable content. The first, Wild Card, was all about Lando Calrissian, and the second, A Pirate’s Fortune, stars fan favorite character Hondo Ohnaka. Wilbert Roget, II explained how he pulled from established Star Wars music to bring Hondo to life in the game: “I know Hondo is a fan favorite, so we incorporated a little bit of the instrumentation, but in the Clone Wars, Hondo’s music is more of a vibe with certain instruments that [are] used, like world instruments, rather than a specific theme that comes back very prominently.”

“We just made sure to incorporate a little bit of that while establishing our version of Hondo,” Roget said, before continuing, “It was actually the exact same with Lando.”

“I wrote a theme for Lando Calrissian as well,” Roget shared, adding, “At first, I thought, ‘Lando is this casino guy, he’s a big gambler,’ all that kind of stuff. But then I realized, actually, in our game, that’s not his character at all. He’s actually remorseful. He’s trying to seek redemption for all of his misgivings on Bespin–his betrayal. So, I incorporated a lot of themes from the films, as well as Jon Everist[‘s] theme for the Rebels, which is sort of somber.”

“He’s just seeking forgiveness. He’s trying to atone for his sins … throughout the entire piece.”

“So it was always about imagining Star Wars as a statue in 3D, and we’re just going to a different angle of it that we haven’t necessarily seen in the films,” Roget finished.

Roget also weighed in on his other big game project, the PlayStation exclusive Helldivers 2, specifically sharing his response to the huge internet reaction to the game: “I never would have expected that, but you know what? I did play Helldivers one, the original, and the community was very active [and] very vociferous. All of the pseudo super patriotism–i was always there ever since the first one. It’s just that now it’s bigger and it’s become an internet phenomenon.”

“My favorite thing to see,” Roget added, “[is that]I love seeing when older gamers who maybe haven’t had this experience in 20 years are coming back. They’re reuniting with their friends. They’re like, ‘This is a fun that I haven’t had since high school, and now we’re back,’ and it just brightens up my day. There are so many emotional stories of how this game has affected people, and it’s just so beautiful that gaming can still do that even after 40, 50 years that we’ve been making these games.”

48 Seasons In, Survivor Still Has New Music

“I Basically Recorded Everybody In Fiji”

Survivor is 48 seasons and a full quarter century into its life, which means there must be hundreds of hours of Survivor music–much of which was composed or produced by David Vanacore, who stopped by the ASCAP Screen Music Awards just before heading out to Sydney, Australia to do some more recording. “We actually use mostly new music every season,” Vanacore revealed, “so it’s a lot of work. It’s year-round.”

And as insular as the idea of Survivor dropping a bunch of Americans into a cordoned-off Fijian beach may be, Vanacore at least makes it a point to give local musicians an opportunity to have their voices heard. “My point of view is getting indigenous people to give me some of their culture in these chants and the voices that you hear,” Vanacore said, “And we try to be as authentic to their culture as possible.”

I’ll just hire somebody from a local college or whatever, and they’ll start scouring and sending me people.

“We’re basically all of the Pacific Islands,” Vanacore continued, “So, sometimes you’ll hear four different languages in the came cue. It’s kind of fun, where the singers will play off of each other. I know what they’re saying in English because I tell them what to say, but then they’ll change the language to match [their culture], and we’ll create, and we come up with really exciting cool things that have to do with getting their message out.”

When looking for musicians, Vanacore “will have somebody there on the ground sending me audio samples.” He continued, saying, “I did Hawaii last year because there are a lot of different Polynesians there, and I’ll just hire somebody from a local college or whatever, and they’ll start scouring and sending me people.”

Vanacore isn’t looking for trained singers, either: “I’m not looking for the session singer. I’m looking for the soul. In Brazil, I picked some guy off the street [because] I heard him yelling. He was washing a car, and this kid came by, sprayed water on the car, and started screaming at him.” Vanacore brought the man into the recording studio–the man didn’t speak English–and got him to yell. “I just said, ‘Yell. I want you to yell at that kid,’” Vanacore shared, adding, “It became a really hair-on-your-neck sound. It was awesome.”

Season 48 is the 15th season that Survivor will have filmed in Fiji, but Vanacore explained his choice not to rely solely on Fijian musicians: “I basically recorded everybody in Fiji. They’re wonderful, but I’ve already recorded them all.” As for why he’s heading to Australia, Vanacore said it’s because “there are so many different ethnic people in Sydney, especially from the islands, and it’s amazing how many different languages there are.”

Bad Monkey Season 2 Is Being Written, Composers Reveal

“We Know They’re Writing”

Bad Monkey composers Jamie Jackson and WAZ were also in attendance, and shared how their eclectic theme for the hit Carl Hiaasen adaptation came to be. “It was a really long process, because Bad Monkey started during the pandemic and then it paused during the strike, and they were shooting in Florida, so there was weather and all kinds of major delays,” Jamie Jackson said, continuing “It took a while for the show to start post, but they started sending us cuts, so we were slowly working on the sound.”

“The theme came in the big search for the tone of the show–how we’re going to balance the drama and the comedy and the twisted quirkiness of the characters and the scenarios,” Jackson added, “The theme really came midway through the process, but it did inform the rest of our process throughout the series.”

Jackson also shared a quick update about Bad Monkey season 2: “We know they’re writing. And they’ll have to announce some new cast members, because so many people died.”

Agatha All Along Is Full Of Musical Easter Eggs

“Fans Are Really Quick To Pick Up On All That”

Michael Paraskevas co-composed the score for the Marvel Disney+ series Agatha All Along, which was nominated at the ASCAP Screen Music Awards for Television Score of the Year. Paraskevas even performed parts of the score himself, saying “Rio’s theme … is literally me playing it on clarinet.”

Those who have seen Agatha All Along know that there is a mᴀssive twist toward the end of the series. When asked how and if he had been musically building to that moment all season long, Paraskevas said “There are so many twists and turns in the show. Every time they mentioned the Ballad, we [were] sprinkling the melody there, [and] when they bring up Billy and his background and being the son of Wanda, we [were] sprinkling her theme in a couple places. And fans are really quick to pick up on all that, so we’re just teasing them.”

“And then in the last episode,” Paraskevas added, “[We] really gave them the full, ‘You’re right. Here we are.’ And I think it’s the cool thing with music–you can do that.”

Why Celebrate Film Music?

ASCAP President Paul Williams Has The Answer

ASCAP president Paul Williams is a versatile musician, actor, and composer (For example, he co-wrote the iconic Muppets song “Rainbow Connection” and Daft Punk’s “Touch” and was the voice of the Penguin in Batman: The Animated Series), but at the ASCAP Screen Awards, he was all about championing the works of others. Asked why it was important to have events like the Screen Awards, Williams said, “Community is a huge part of the healing process. We’ve been through some outrageous, painful experiences in Los Angeles, as well as what’s going on in the rest of the world.”

On top of that, Williams said, “The fact is, it’s so easy to love the music and not have any sense of where it comes from. We need to remind people that it’s a labor of love, but it’s a labor. Paying a fair price for music puts food on the table and gas in the car.”

“These guys that score pictures–it’s a remarkable gift to look at a scene and let their own emotion lead them to the right sound. It’s magical.”

Read more about the projects discussed at the ASCAP Screen Music Awards below:

• Mr & Mrs Smith
• Jim Henson Idea Man
• Moana 2
• Star Wars Outlaws
• Survivor
• Bad Monkey
• Agatha All Along
• Only Murders in the Building

For more about the ASCAP Screen Music Awards, check out ASCAP.com.