You know that song from 28 Days Later? The catchy, Mogwai-esque instrumental that gets stuck in your head for hours after you hear it? Well, the song is called “In The House, In a Heartbeat”, and it was written by a British composer named John Murphy.
Now, I assume this song was written specifically for the 28 Days soundtrack, because it also figured prominently in the sequel 28 Weeks Later (and in a lot of ways was the latter film’s theme song). And I know it was also used in some promotional spots for the TV show Prison Break. But lately it’s also popped up in trailers for three different movies being released by three different studios: Death Sentence (trailer), I Know Who Killed Me (trailer) and Beowulf (trailer). And who knows how many other trailers it’s in that I just haven’t seen.
So here’s my question: are the song’s publishers such greedy bastards that they don’t inform their clients about who else is buying the rights, or are the studios just so lazy that they don’t care about their film’s identity?
I mean, I kind of expect ordinary radio-pop songs to be recycled ad nauseam like this (that’s what they’re for–keep chewing on ’em until they lose their taste), but it seems supremely bizarre that a soundtrack piece would lifted out and reused so often in such a short span of time for competing films.
I mean… what absolute sloppiness. It’s like an outright admission that the studios don’t give a shit about the quality or originality of their material. And besides degrading the credibility of these films, it has instantly turned the song into a trailer cliche on par with the “In a World…” opening.
And if the trailers are this lazy and predictable, how good can the actual films be?