The musical score for Hulk was composed by Danny Elfman, who scored Spider-Man the previous year. Frequent Ang Lee collaborator, Mychael Danna, was the original composer for the film. However, Danna's score was rejected by studio executives for its non-traditional approach, which featured Japanese taiko, African drumming, and Arabic singing. Elfman was then approached by Universal's president of film music, Kathy Nelson. With 37 days to compose over two hours of music, Elfman agreed out of respect to Lee. While instructing to retain much of the character of Danna's score, Lee pushed Elfman to write material that did not sound like his previous superhero scores. "They did leave some of my music in the movie," said Danna, "so the Arabic singing and some of the drumming is mine. What happened is that they panicked, they brought in Danny and he heard what I've been doing and I guess he liked it."
