When studio executives on blockbuster films are looking to make a splash with a star-studded soundtrack to help meet the moment, one of the first calls they’re making these days is likely to Kevin Weaver.
Weaver, the west coast president at Atlantic Records, is on a roll, having co-produced the soundtracks for Barbie in 2023 and Twisters last year, the former of which won the Grammy for best compilation soundtrack for visual media and spawned several hit singles, while the latter’s already been certified gold and, per Weaver, is nearing platinum status.
Now he’s looking to go three-for-three with F1, which hits theaters Friday and is looking to do laps around the competition at the box office this weekend, while F1 the Album officially hit streaming services today as well. Zimmer composed the music for the film, and his score album released Friday as well.
“We take big swings, I’ll do one or two projects a year in this lane, if that. And we’re very selective about what we do. I’d been watching this one develop for a while, and between Jerry (Bruckheimer, the film’s producer) Joe Kosinski directing, Brad Pitt attached to the IP of F1 and Lewis Hamilton being involved as a producer, this just had all the verticals and levers I would be looking for in a creative partnership.”
Like Barbie and Twisters were in their own respective years, F1 is certainly among the most ambitious (if not the most ambitious) film soundtracks of 2025. While Barbie leaned toward pop with the likes of Dua Lipa and Billie Eilish and Twisters to country with Luke Combs and Jelly Roll, F1 casts a much wider net of global superstars in every genre from latin to EDM, afrobeats to country to hip-hop and pop, including Ed Sheeran, Burna Boy, Rosé, Tate McRae, Chris Stapleton, Myke Towers, Doja Cat, Raye, Tiësto and Peggy Gou among many others.
“My mood board was experiential. I got to spend time at some of the Grand Prix. We went to the Las Vegas Grand Prix early on. Being in the paddock and experiencing the entire four or five days around the race, there were all of these musical kinds of voices coming at me from every direction that I turned,” Weaver says. “There were DJs, you’d have musical performances. There would be nightclub stuff happening in the evenings. We wanted something synonymous with what F1 is, this is what F1 sounds like. That’s what set the table for me creatively.”
Weaver, who also produced the multi-platinum Suicide Squad and The Greatest Showman soundtracks back in 2017, says Apple TV+ Head of Music David Taylor had approached him about a soundtrack about a year ago last summer, and that he, Taylor and Atlantic’s Brandon Davis and Joe Khoury had met with Kosinski and Bruckheimer soon after to go over about a dozen scenes.
“After we closed the deal, we were off to the races both literally and figuratively,” Weaver says. “Joe and Jerry really understood the importance of music and the value of music here. Those scenes looked phenomenal, and what we saw was a lot of opportunity for major music moments. There’s a lot of great music real estate here. I just started putting together essentially a playlist basically of what I thought the overall sound of this could feel like.”
Securing the talent was seamless, with Weaver saying that “pretty much every artist we approached wanted to be a part of this. We had an abundance of riches.”
Weaver says that “from the inception” after watching the F1 scenes, he was thinking about Burna Boy, Rosé and Sheeran for their involvement, with Burna’s “Don’t Let Me Down” being the first song that got locked into the film. Other notable tracks include Sheeran’s “Drive,” which features John Mayer on Guitar with Dave Grohl on drums, and Don Toliver’s “Lose My Mind” featuring “Doja Cat.”
Atlantic had released a handful of singles, including “Drive” and McRae’s “Just Keep Watching,” prior to Friday’s release. None had necessarily become bonafide breakout hits on their own, though a strong outing at the box office would certainly boost the soundtrack and help create some traction.
Weaver hopes the hot streak continues with F1 and more, teasing his next soundtrack is “attached to the biggest media property of our generation,” but wouldn’t provide more specifics. When asked what he sees as a successful outing Weaver acknowledges, setting the Barbie soundtrack as the benchmark for success is a bit of a fool’s errand given how uniquely massive a cultural moment the entire film was, but he hopes the soundtrack can become engrained with F1 itself.
“Barbie was incredibly anomalous, but Twisters, we’re about to have a platinum record there in the first year. That Luke Combs song was a smash,” Weaver says. “We want to make a profit obviously, anything that earns out is successful, but I want to move culture. I want to do things that move culture and that impact culture and that feel special and unique and important. We want this to become synonymous with the sport. I think we’ve checked all those boxes here.”
