How on earth did Metallica end up working on a Disney movie?
As far as musical genres go, I wouldn’t consider heavy metal and Disney to be the most compatible, but if any band is going to find a way to make it work, it’s probably Metallica.
Compared to the murky world of sludgey doom metal or the extremities of black metal, Metallica’s brand of the genre is pretty accessible. In fact, they’re one of the most successful bands of all time, so it only makes sense that they found their way into the massive corporation that is Disney, a capitalistic monolith that relies on commercialism before anything else.
So, when Disney came to make their blockbuster adventure movie Jungle Cruise, which was inspired by their own theme park ride (it really is a dark era for cinema), it was finally time for Metallica to get involved. “It really goes back to [producer] Sean Bailey, who is a lifelong rock fan, and is just all-around one of the greatest, most friendly, generous, warm, and embracing people you’ll find in the music business,” Lars Ulrich told Collider.
“I think he’s always been a Metallica fan, and we’ve gotten to know each other well,” he added. “My wife and I are big Disney fans, so there’s a great friendship there, and he’s always looked for the right match where there was a way that Metallica could contribute to some project of theirs”.
You wouldn’t expect a rockstar to be a Disney fan, but it’s more common than you think. Billy Corgan is literally a Disney adult. To be fair, the appeal isn’t hard to see; the films are nostalgic and heartwarming, and in a world as chaotic as this one, indulging in family-friendly movies that advocate for love and friendship is quite a nice idea.
Jungle Cruise wasn’t exactly Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or Sleeping Beauty, though. We’ve entered a new era for Disney, which prioritises easily accessible blockbusters featuring big names, in this case, The Rock and Emily Blunt. It’s actually quite an odd cast, because what other film would feature Jesse Plemons alongside Jack Whitehall? They’re basically from different universes.
The film might have been a box office disappointment, but Ulrich was delighted to be able to work on a Disney movie. “This was the right fit, with Sean leading the cavalry, and with James Newton Howard and his track record, and what he’s done,” Ulrich noted. With the help of the legendary film composer, Metallica created a new version of one of their classic tracks.
“It’s a very unusual morph in that it’s kind of his arrangement of ‘Nothing Else Matters’ that we’re playing. We wrote the song, but he took the song and rearranged it to fit something specific in the film, and obviously, I’m not going to give any of that away, but we then kind of took on his version of it. I think that’s all that should be said,” he added, quite proud.
Taking their popular 1991 track from their self-titled album and reworking it into something Disney-appropriate certainly wasn’t something that many Metallica fans expected, but it worked. I guess when you’ve got Newton Howard on board, you don’t have to worry.
