How Marvel Studios Brought Back The Iconic ‘X-Men: The Animated Series’ Theme
Before Kevin Feige would greenlight a revival of the popular 1990s show X-Men: The Animated Series, he had two prerequisites. The first was that Marvel Studios would be able to get the original series’ voice cast back. The second was that they secured the rights to the series’s iconic theme song.
Any kid who grew up in the 1990s knows the X-Men: The Animated Series theme song. The iconic instrumental has become synonymous with the X-Men over time and transcended the animated series that it was written for.
Who Wrote the Iconic Theme Song?
What many people do not know, however, is that the theme was originally composed by Ron Wasserman, who performed the song solo.
“By the time X-Men was written, I’d learned to play or emulate any instrument, so I would have played every part. Just me, a MIDI keyboard, and a computer,” he recalled in 2022.
Despite writing one the most recognizable pieces of music in television history, Wasserman was never given the credit he deserved.
At the time, he composed the theme song, which was used for the first four seasons of X-Men: The Animated Series, and he was under contract with Saban Entertainment. The X-Men theme song, then, was credited to the company’s founders, Haim Saban and Shuki Levy.
When Marvel Studios used a sample of the theme song in both Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Ms. Marvel, it was Saban and Levy who were credited.
Disney Acquires The Theme Song Rights
In order to secure the rights to the theme song, Disney reportedly paid an exorbitant amount of money. But as Feige said, the animated series revival needed the iconic theme song.
After securing the rights to the X-Men theme, Disney turned to John Andrew Grush and Taylor Newton Stewart (better known as the Newton Brothers) to re-record the song.
“It was pure excitement and terror all at the same time,” Grush tells Inverse about re-recording the song. “We said: ‘Just don’t mess it up,’ because it’s a perfect piece of music.”
In total, Grush and Stewart recorded “seven or eight” versions of the song. In the end, however, a version very close to the original was chosen.
“They were all wildly different,” Grush explains. “Like, here’s one that’s totally modern. Here’s one that’s traditional. And here’s a hybrid. Here’s the dark version — the whole-world-is-ending version. But when it came down to it, when the sounds we were using were in line with the original, that was what was working best.”
Recording the New Theme
Unlike the original version of the song, which Wasserman created using a MIDI keyboard, the Newton Brothers used real musicians this time around.
“We got this guitar player, Nili Brosh, to play the lead guitar part, and then it started to come together. But we worked for months on it. It’s a lot of trial and error,” Grush explained.
In the end, Feige got his theme song, X-Men fans got a revival of the classic 90s animated series, and Marvel Studios got a hit. A win-win-win.
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