Custom music for Adrien Brody’s turn as a TurboTax expert

The brief

Adweek described TurboTax’s 2026 Super Bowl campaign starring Adrien Brody as “refreshingly different for the category” in its article “Super Bowl Hot Take: TurboTax’s Cinematic Adrien Brody Campaign Is Oscar-Worthy.” The film stands out because of its sincere and cinematic approach to comedy, and our challenge was to create a custom score that underscored the drama without distracting from the humor of the story.

The process

To bring the score to life, we engaged 10 of our best composers from around the globe to produce dozens of custom demos, completing the entire composition process in just under three weeks.

The core challenge was scoring three distinct acts in the campaign’s two-minute longform film. Each act required its own unique style and emotion, ranging from tense to dramatic to explosive, all with a sense of momentum from beginning to end.

Each musical idea needed to support the comedy through a sincere delivery, without falling into quirky or tongue-in-cheek territory. Through five rounds of creative exploration, we worked with the client team to create beds ranging from tentative orchestral drama to jazzy drums and minimal docu-style underscore with flutes, mallets, and strings. As creative direction evolved, each section began to take on its own identity, and we narrowed in on three accomplished composers to handcraft the perfect complementary music.

The result

Following the production of 33 original tracks and weeks of revisions, the final longform spot brought together three distinct sections, each carefully crafted to support the story. Beyond the longform film, we also tailored a variety of cutdown versions, from :15-second teasers featuring sparse drums to the :45-second Super Bowl broadcast edit featuring noir-inspired orchestration and explosive percussion. The result was a meticulously produced, cohesive score that supports not only the individual acts but the film as a whole.