HBO’s ‘Harry Potter’ Music Will Be ‘As Far Away as Possible’ From the Movies; Hans Zimmer Says ‘I Can’t Write Like John Williams’

While the trailers HBO has released for its upcoming “Harry Potter” reboot share a lot of similarities with the original movies, the music will be totally different.

In an interview with Collider, Hans Zimmer spoke about the how intimidating it was to follow the footsteps of iconic composer John Williams. “Harry Potter” marks Zimmer’s second project based on IP that Williams had already written for — he previously scored Zack Snyder’s 2013 Superman film “Man of Steel” after Williams had composed for the 1978 “Superman” film and its 1980 sequel.

When asked about whether his “Harry Potter” music would be similar to Williams’, Zimmer pointed to his experience on “Man of Steel,” saying, “I can’t write like John Williams, but even if I could, I would try to stay away as far as possible and try to be original.”

“When I was doing ‘Man of Steel,’ which, of course, is Superman, for three months I was running around going, ‘I don’t know. I can’t do this. I can’t do this because it’s John Williams. John Williams is — it’s brilliant! It’s brilliant!'” Zimmer said, as Williams had composed the score for He went on to explain that Christopher Nolan was a producer on “Man of Steel” and pushed Zack Snyder to check on Zimmer’s progress. “Zack phoned me and said, ‘Can I come down?’ I go, ‘I don’t really have anything,’ and he goes, ‘Well, I’ll be there on Tuesday.’ So I came up with a tune, but I still was incredibly worried about it.”

Zimmer continued, “Zack just said the simplest thing to me. He said, ‘Hans, it was just a movie. This is just a movie.’ And that was so liberating. It’s just a movie, and my life is all about making music for movies, which I do because I love it. I love the movies, and I love having fun with it.”

Williams was the composer on the first three “Harry Potter” films, which were released between 2001 and 2004. “Hedwig’s Theme,” the musical motif most commonly associated with the IP, appears in all seven films and is widely considered one of the greatest pieces of film music ever.

Season 1 of the “Harry Potter” reboot will debut on HBO near Christmas. See trailers for the new series here and here.