HEART OF THE BEAST Composer Jared Michael Fry Talks Brad Pitt Film Score
The score features a 50-piece London Contemporary Orchestra ensemble alongside Alaskan Inuit group Pamyua.
Award-winning composer Jared Michael Fry has scored the upcoming film Heart of the Beast starring Brad Pitt, J.K. Simmons, and Anna Lambe. The film will be released on September 25, 2026, by Paramount Pictures. The soundtrack will be released by Lakeshore Records on the same day, coinciding with the theatrical release.
Watch the trailer for Heart of the Beast.
Heart of the Beast marks Fry's third collaboration with director David Ayer, following A Working Man, starring Jason Statham, and the global hit The Beekeeper (with co-composer David Sardy), also starring Statham.
Film Synopsis
After a harrowing plane crash, Special Forces officer James Belmont (Brad Pitt) and his combat dog, Odin, find themselves stranded deep in the Alaskan wilderness. Together, they are forced into a brutal fight for survival against the elements. From acclaimed filmmaker David Ayer, Heart of the Beast is an intense adventure thriller that explores the unbreakable bond between a man and his best friend as they face their greatest battle yet.
Heart of the Beast is produced by Olivia Hamilton, Marty Bowen, David Ayer, and Brad Pitt.
Fry worked on the project for more than a year and composed various musical motifs for the score. The soundscape reflects both the danger and vastness of the external forces the protagonist faces while reaching into his most intimate emotional life.
Fry explained, 'With the music, I was looking for that deeper connection. In many ways, the music leans into James Belmont's (Brad Pitt) emotional struggle. It felt like a spiritual journey as he encounters something beyond himself and his own beliefs. In addition, as war veterans, James and his service dog, Odin, were both living with recurring PTSD.'
To musically express the challenges facing Belmont, both physically and emotionally, Fry incorporated a 50-piece ensemble from the London Contemporary Orchestra. Additionally, he combined cultures and traditions with Inuit, Eastern and other world-music influences. He intentionally avoided creating an overly lush or conventionally heroic score, often employing simple and rudimentary harmonies because richer chord progressions felt out of place.
To provide an authentic, culturally specific foundation for the score, Fry brought in the award-winning Alaskan Inuit group PAMYUA, whose vocalizations, Yup'ik-language singing, chanting, humming and drumming were recorded remotely. He merged these elements with ethereal vocals from the London-based choral ensemble London Voices.
The string section was weighted toward violas, cellos and basses to create a darker sound, while brass was used sparingly for emotional warmth and impact. Although the full orchestra and choirs provided breadth, Fry reduced the ensemble to as few as five string players during the film's most intimate moments. Chromatic gamelans, unconventional choral vowels, environmental woodwind effects and layered drums helped evoke wind, trees, running water and the foreignness of the landscape from James's perspective.
'It was an honor to work again with David Ayer on Heart of the Beast, our third project together. He was a true champion of the score, and the trust and freedom he gave me were incredible. There is a sensitivity to the film that Brad Pitt brings to it, and it is very spiritual. To capture the beauty musically, I used sounds that imitate nature. That's why the palette of sounds opened up to that Eastern sound, and the female voices added something that was not so tame, classical or safe,' he says.
About Jared Michael Fry
Composer Jared Michael Fry's music credits have traversed both film and television. From his humble beginnings in a high-school band to studying music education at Berklee, Fry has garnered an appreciation for all music genres. Now an award-winning composer, Fry has collaborated on three films with renowned director David Ayer: A Working Man, The Beekeeper, and most recently, Heart of the Beast which stars Brad Pitt and releases this fall. His television credits also include the miniseries Big Cats.
Growing up playing in rock bands in Hollister California, Fry was introduced to orchestra and jazz music when he studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. After graduating from Berklee, Fry moved to Los Angeles and worked as a staff composer at Hans Zimmer's Bleeding Fingers Music where he earned a News & Documentary Emmy nomination for Outstanding Music and Sound for his work on PBS's Super Cats: A NATURE Miniseries. His experience at Bleeding Fingers Music led to future contributions with acclaimed composers including Benjamin Wallfisch on the horror sequel It Chapter Two, Alien: Romulus, The Flash, The Invisible Man, and Thirteen Lives. For Steve Jablonsky, Fry contributed additional music on the action-comedy Red Notice. Fry has also collaborated with composer Joseph Trapanese and electronic artist Luke Steele of Empire of the Sun.
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