Composer Alan Silvestri was originally hired to write the score for The Curse of the Black Pearl. However, due to creative differences between the producer Jerry Bruckheimer and him, Silvestri left the project and Gore Verbinski asked Hans Zimmer, with whom he had worked on The Ring, to step in. Zimmer declined to do the bulk of the composing, as he was busy scoring The Last Samurai, a project during which he claimed he had promised not to take any other assignments. As a result he referred Verbinski to Klaus Badelt, a relatively new composer who had been a part of Remote Control Productions (known as Media Ventures at the time) for three years.