John Williams – AFI Award and next projects

John Williams received the 44th AFI Life Achivement Award last night from his friend and collaborator Steven Spielberg, being the first time in the history of the American Film Institute that this award goes to a composer.

John Williams - AFI 2016

The ceremony was held at a private gala carried out at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, and will be broadcast on June 15 on the TNT television channel.

The phrase used by John Williams to receive this award is a sign of both his greatness and his humility: “Tomorrow morning, when I’m back at work, I’ll try to deserve all this.

Also in a recent interview with Variety, John Williams, who is still in full shape after composing the music of the film BFG, has just announced that he will be in charge of Steven Spielberg’s next project, the adaptation of the novel Ready Player One and he will start working on it this month of November, with a premiere date set 30th of March of 2018.

The film will feature Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Win Morisaki, Mark Rylance, Simon Pegg and TJ Miller. It is based on the 2011 novel of the same title by writer Ernest Cline, and tells the story of a group of teenagers in search of riches in a futuristic and virtual world.

In that same interview, John Williams has mentioned that he hopes to be able to compose the music of Star Wars: Episode VIII, which is due to premiere on December 15, 2017.

We also hope it, John !!

Fabulous news for all the fans of this magnificent composer !!