All Netflix users are well familiar with the iconic “ta-dum” sound that plays before every movie and original series of the streaming platform. “It’s immediately recognisable and everyone knows that it means Netflix,” said Todd Yellin, Product Vice President at Netflix. Academy Award-winning composer Lon Bender created the catchy sound, Yellin also explained.
Also, as it turned out, other sounds that could have represented Netflix included goat bleating, which was a more humorous answer to MGM’s lion roar.
According to the Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast, Netflix felt like this intro was a bit too short for festivals and movie theaters, so the company hired Hans Zimmer, a famous film score composer, to create a extended, symphonic, and cinematic version of the famous intro.
The 16-second intro, which begins with a classic crescendo, will set people up for a longer experience and will help Netflix take a new level with presenting its feature movies in theaters and at movie festivals. Building up a soaring orchestral theme, it drops “ta-dum” right at the end.
Hans Zimmer is a famous award-winning German composer who has composed and produced more than a hundred of film scores and soundtracks. He is the one behind the scores of Gladiator, Inception, Pirates of the Caribbean, Interstellar, The Lion King, and others. He also worked on Netflix’s The Crown, so he was naturally the company’s first choice when it came to choosing a person who would create a symphonic theme but also retain the iconic “ta-dum” as much as possible.