Éric Serra (born on 9 September 1959) is a French composer. He has often worked on the films of Luc Besson. Éric Serra's father Claude was a famous French songwriter in the 1950s and '60s, and, as such, Éric was exposed to music and its production at a young age. His mother died when he was just seven years old. ...show more

Éric Serra (born on 9 September 1959) is a French composer. He has often worked on the films of Luc Besson. Éric Serra's father Claude was a famous French songwriter in the 1950s and '60s, and, as such, Éric was exposed to music and its production at a young age. His mother died when he was just seven years old.

In the early '80s, Serra met director Luc Besson and was asked to score his first movie Le Dernier Combat (1983). Serra has scored nearly every film Besson has directed to date (with the exception of Angel-A, which was scored by Anja Garbarek), and several that Besson has written such as Wasabi. In 1995, Éric Serra was chosen to compose the score to the James Bond film GoldenEye, which was quite an avant-garde soundtrack compared to previous Bond films. It met with mixed reviews from film critics.

Serra's score is often criticized by Bond fans, and is considered the farthest departure from a traditional Bond score in the series history. The producers later hired John Altman to provide the music for the tank chase in St. Petersburg. Serra's original track for that sequence can still be found on the soundtrack as "A Pleasant Drive In St. ...show less