Hans Zimmer
Composer Hans Zimmer, pictured at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 26, said he's retiring from composing superhero movies after “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justine.” Getty Images

With “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” getting bad reviews left and right, one important member of the DC Expanded Universe (DCEU) is dropping out. Hans Zimmer, the famed composer behind some of Hollywood’s most famous movies, has stated that he’s no longer going to be doing music for the superhero genre after the recently released film.

While many may assume that the famous composer is distancing himself from the DCEU after critics by and large paned the latest film as a jumbled mess of poorly-adapted comic book source material, Zimmer’s reason for stepping away from superhero movies is significantly more diplomatic than that.

“I did ‘Batman Begins’ with Chris [Nolan] 12 years ago,” he told BBC HARDtalk. “So ‘The Dark Knight Trilogy’ might be three movies to you, to me it was 11 years of my life.”

While the famous “Dark Knight” movies are among his more popular film scores, Zimmer has worked on other superhero movies such as “Man of Steel,” “The Amazing Spider-Man 2" and other animated features. With Warner Bros. hoping to expand its film universe with standalone titles like “The Flash,” “Wonder Woman,” “Aquaman,” “Suicide Squad” and “The Justice League,” it seems the 58-year-old musician doesn’t want to get roped into being the musical voice of the entire genre for the next few years.

However, as the Verge points out, it’s not like he’s had trouble juggling the workload, having scored a slew of animated, video game and film content in between the superhero movies. Instead, it’s his desire to step away from the type of music that a superhero movie requires, having pretty much exhausted everything he has to say musically after more than a decade in the genre.

Unfortunately for the DCEU, Zimmer’s very respectful exit from scoring the upcoming films is the least of its problems. As previously mentioned, “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” was meant to kick off an expanded universe of films set in the world of DC Comics. However, with the film raking in poor reviews and the studio committed to so many more, they’ll have to think of a way to salvage the already-ailing connected film universe.

What do you think of Zimmer’s choice to stop composing superhero movies? Comment below or tweet your thoughts to @TylerMcCarthy.

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