Heads Of State

Heads of State is a 2025 action comedy film directed by Ilya Naishuller. I had much admired his previous film, Nobody, so was thrilled when the opportunity came to work with him.  The movie stars Idris Elba as the British Prime Minister and John Cena as the President of the United States, and sees the two world leaders being forced to work together after becoming targets of a foreign adversary,  The movie was released worldwide on 2 July 2025.  Despite being the sort of big screen event movie that would be absolutely suited to a wide theatrical release, on this occasion the movie was released via Amazon Prime, where it achieved reportedly impressive viewing figures.  I would have loved to have seen it in a theatre though!

A mark of Ilya’s filmmaking is his incredible sense of choreography and precise comedy timing within action sequences, and as a composer this was a lot for me fun to work with, and indeed he is a fantastic and instinctive collaborator.   The film demanded big orchestral action writing, which was embellished through our combined love of the guitar.  I had recently got held of an incredible Castadosa Baritone guitar with a crazy inbuilt fuzz circuit, and its sound seemed to suit the craziness of the action sequences.  The result was a big, bold and fun action score, albeit with some emotional beats that I thoroughly enjoyed writing.

The orchestra was recorded in Scotland, with a lot of the same musicians I had worked with previously on William Tell.  It was mixed back in London, and although some elements of the final dub proved frustrating from a musical perspective, I think the end result was a genuinely fun movie.  Maybe a sequel one day with the film stealing Jack Quaid?!