TriStar and Amblin's released "The Mask of Zorro" in the summer of 1998. Inspired by the character created by pulp author Johnston McCulley, the film tells an original story, in which an aged masked vigilante seeks revenge on the man who killed his family and put him in prison for decades, only to join forces with a young bandit also seeking vengeance, who will become his successor. Several directors came and went on the project before landing on Martin Campbell. Despite a tricky production that went massively over budget and pushed back the release date, the film was a success with both audience and critics, ultimately earning a reputation as a thrilling old-fashioned yarn, full practical swashbuckling and stunts, an adventurous plot with plenty of heart, drama, romance, and a witty script, and sizzling chemistry between Banderas and Zeta-Jones.
Joining the quest was composer James Horner. Horner brought his signature sound, as one of the kings of Hollywood blockbuster scoring of the 90's. "Zorro" is full of several strong themes, rousing action and chase cues, sweeping romance, and his usual 'danger motif' thrown in for good measure. What really sets the score apart from his typical stylings though is its Latin flair. While far from technically accurate, drawing more from Spain than the Mexican/American territories, the castanets and stomping add an infectiously rousing and unique layer to the orchestral base that still stands out as a high point in the beloved composer's illustrious career.
The original soundtrack album was released by Sony Music Soundtrax, featuring over seventy minutes of Horner's score, plus the end credits song based on Horner's love theme (quite over-produced and with rather silly lyrics, but a belter of a tune nonetheless). In 2023, La-La Land Records delivered an expanded album, featuring the full score, plus some original album alternates and the Spanish version of the song, almost doubling the presentation in total. This film was one of my absolute favorites growing up as a kid, owned it on VHS, and must have watched it dozens and dozens of times. Like a total nerd, I even recorded the entire film's audio onto cassette tape so I could hear the score and relive the film while nodding off to sleep. Though the original album features most of the necessary highlights, the expanded presentation is still a delightful reward for fans. I'd toyed with this project off and on for a few years, but delighted to finally present my full set of thirteen covers for this beauty!
Covers 1 - 6 all use official promotional artwork. Most required various edits, patching, enhancing, etc. Cover 2 is my alternate on the official covers, blending elements of the original poster, keeping some inspiration from Jim Titus' work on the expanded album, but adding my own little twists here and there. I had to create my own tail to his cape and paint out some things. I liked Jim's idea of adding some textures here and there (I added a leather overlay to the 'Z', and a subtle canvas texture to the background). The original film title most used Trajan, but I tried to find some similar fonts for other credits that might have a little bit more flair to them.
Cover 4 uses the same promotional still that was used on the back of the original album, but instead of just a flash red wash, I wanted some lighter highlights and in the end opted to have Zorro pop with more naturalistic colors.
Cover 7 is a bit of an original concoction, combining two character promotional photos (one of Hopkins and Banderas, and Zeta-Jones taken from a separate shot with Banderas).
Cover 8 uses more recent original art from the 4K UHD Blu-ray, though I wasn't able to find the artist for this particular image. This one actually took quite a bit of work as I wasn't able to find the image fully textless, so I had to carefully paint out the title, then moved the three swashbucklers up higher in the image, and then meticulously clone and hand-blend everything back together under the new title.
Covers 9 - 13 all feature my favorite pieces of fan-created or commissioned artwork made in the years since the film's release.
Cover 9 features art by Polish illustrator Grzegorz Domaradzki, aka Gabz.
Cover 10 features illustration by ShokXone Studios.
Cover 11 was actually a last-minute find, and my final addition to the collection, featuring art by Stephen Sampson. I wasn't able to find the exact same font as he used for his custom title, but found something in the same vein, though placing text and creating a few framing for a diagonal design like this is always very challenging.
Cover 12 features a lovely digital painting by South African artist Chris Valentine. He actually had two variations on this poster, one much more muted (with only the 'Z' in faint orange), and a second that is much redder. I ended up making a custom blend somewhere in between the two. I paint to paint in the silhouette of Banderas' lower half to reposition the title.
Finally, Cover 13 features a gorgeous illustration by Spanish painter Sebastian Ramirez Sanchez, also a fairly late addition to the set. I slid the bottom portion of the image up and re-blended acccordingly, but then it took a bit of time to figure out how to deal with the space between Banderas's hand/sword hilt and then the California map that was behind the lower landscape image. Sometimes the general layout of an image is pretty simple to come by, but you then end up spending countless hours fine-tuning just certain small portions of the image to make the changes all come together seamlessly. I also ended up tracing the shape of his custom 'Z' lettering, and adding a bit of texture and shadow to it, though then keeping my established fonts.
Overall, I'm quite happy with this set, and hope that you all enjoy them as well! Let me know your favorites below.
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