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Sony Renames Music Building After John Williams as Hollywood Legends Turn Out to Pay Tribute

Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams and Sony executives Tony Vinciquerra and Tom Rothman spoke ahead of the 91-year-old, who said he first visited the building in 1940.

“Johnny, I have grown up with you,” the filmmaker said, recalling how struck he had been listening to the album of Williams’ score for the 1969 film The Reivers, vowing, “If I ever got the chance to make a movie, I would want the guy who wrote this.” The two met ahead of Spielberg’s feature directorial debut, 1974’s The Sugarland Express, and have rarely worked apart since. This is the alley is where I stress!” He then shared that his history at the building that now bears his name dates back long before his professional career: “The first time I came to this studio was 1940 when my father brought me here to show me the stage. As guests posed for photographs and headed over to a buffet lunch, Rothman escorted a fellow journalist and I into the John Williams Music Building, where another great composer, Oscar winner Dario Marianelli, was scoring, with a full orchestra, the upcoming Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, as director Gil Kenan looked on.

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