Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe LOS ANGELES, May 2 (UPI) -- After 11 months of editing and composing the score for "X2: X-Men United," John Ottman was too spent to party with director Bryan Singer on opening night. The movie's Friday release kicks off the summer box-office season. It's the first of a slew of 2003 sequels to blockbuster hits that includes "The Matrix Reloaded," "2 Fast, 2 Furious," "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" and "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines." Advertisement Some box-office analysts expect "X2" will pull in $85 million in its opening weekend -- well short of "Spider-Man's" record opening gross of $114.8 million, but strong enough to be the biggest opening of the year so far. Ottman told United Press International that Singer has arranged for a limo to carry him and several people who worked on "X2" around Hollywood Friday -- going from theater to theater to watch the crowds. Ottman said he won't be along for the ride. Advertisement "That's way too much activity for me," he said. "I just want to think about Hawaii, laying around doing nothing for a while." Ottman has written the scores for and edited almost all of Singer's films, including "The Usual Suspects" (1995) and "Apt Pupil" (1998). He won a British Academy Award and an American Cinema Editors nomination for editing "The Usual Suspects" -- and his score for the film won a Saturn Award. Ottman has composed scores for such movies as "Eight Legged Freaks" (2002), "Lake Placid" (1999), "Halloween H20: 20 Years Later" (1998) and "The Cable Guy" (1996) -- and for "Urban Legends: Final Cut" (2000), which was also his feature film directorial debut. That project made him the only film director-editor-composer in Hollywood. It also made him unavailable to work on "X-Men." Ottman said that working as both film editor and composer is a very time-consuming proposition. "A composer can be on a film as little as four weeks," he said. "An editor is on it 11 months -- sometimes up to a year-and-a-half or even two years." It also gets a little costly, because when he takes on both jobs, Ottman said, he has to turn down opportunities to score other movies. Advertisement "A film composer can do five or six movies a year," he said. "I lost a lot of film scoring, but what I got out of it was the biggest movie of the year." Ottman said he was so ready to be finished with "X2" that he just did make it to the finish line. "When we were on the final hour of the final dub, I told Bryan, 'OK, don't call me for two years,'" said Ottman. "And I walked out." Don't get the wrong idea. It wasn't a case of bad blood -- just impatience to hit the door. Ottman is already looking forward to "X3," if there is to be one. "It was great to be involved in ('X2') and it was the biggest movie I've done," he said. "And I would kill to be involved in the third one." "X2" is a comic-book hero movie, but critics generally agree that its story is substantial. Ottman said that was one of the best parts about scoring the movie. "It's a huge summer film that's going to be competing with massive movies like 'Matrix' and 'T-3,'" he said. "I was happy that on a film like that I was able to do a score that was romantic and not reliant on synthesizers -- something that harkens back to the old days." Advertisement Ottman believes that "thematic scores" -- the kind that John Williams is famous for -- are an art form that is "withering on the vine." Now that he has finished with his "X2" marathon, he's ready to go to work on less time-consuming projects. "I want to get some scores in," he said. But first, he needs to recharge. "Give me a couple of months of having my life back," said Ottman, "and I'll be freaked out -- and calling my agent."
