Pharrell Williams To Write Original Music for ‘Despicable Me’

It was announced today that three-time Grammy Award winner and internationally renowned singer, songwriter, producer and designer Pharrell Williams will write original music for Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment’s upcoming 3-D CGI feature Despicable Me. This marks the first time The Neptunes and N.E.R.D. artist will compose music for a film. He is joined in the feature’s composition duties by Oscar® winner Hans Zimmer and Heitor Pereira.

Despicable Me, which stars the vocal talents of Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Will Arnett, Kristen Wiig, Danny McBride, Miranda Cosgrove, Jack McBrayer, Mindy Kaling, Jemaine Clement and Julie Andrews, arrives in theaters on July 9, 2010.

In addition to the title track for Despicable Me, which debuted with the feature’s teaser trailer, Williams has already begun to write the film’s orchestral score as well as several other songs to be incorporated into the score. Chris Meledandri (Ice Age, Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, Robots, Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!) is producing Despicable Me through his new company – Illumination Entertainment, which has a longterm partnership with Universal to deliver live-action and animated all-audience films for the Universal slate.

About his involvement in the project, Pharrell Williams said: “I love cartoons and animation, and I’ve never seen such incredible 3-D CGI. To score Despicable Me along with Hans and Heitor and write original songs for the film is a dream come true.”

“Pharrell is one of the most important contemporary songwriters, Hans is one of the truly great film composers and Heitor is the next generation of Hans’ protégés. This is an extraordinary teaming of talent,” said Meledandri. “With every note they write, our film is being enriched.”