Gotham's Reckoning

Having composed a 'punk orchestra' score for The Dark Knight, Hans Zimmer told NME that he went all over the place for third part of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises. He told NME: "I suppose Can was an influence, and in a weird way Goldfrapp, and Bach. It's got much more of a rock 'n' roll spine than film music normally does. People say 'minimalism' but it isn't really - there are all these huge gestures. Bane just crashes into that world and it gave me a huge opportunity to do something completely reckless.

I went to Warner Brothers," he continued, "they were very nice about it - and said 'I have this idea - can I get a huge orchestra and try this thing out… and if it doesn't work will you be so kind as to not mention that I just blew half the music budget."

The Dark Knight Rises debuted at #8 on the Billboard 200, the highest-arriving score album in just over 10 years. The previous one to start off higher was John Williams' Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, which bowed at # 6 on the chart dated May 11, 2002.