To all the sound geeks out there, Jon has spoken! This was posted on his Twitter account Sunday:
Spoiler for sound geeks: The Wilhelm Scream is in.
10:39 AM Mar 21st via Echofon
For those unaware (I was), here is a brief condensed history courtesy of LA Times:
The Wilhelm Scream, originally from a 1951 movie titled Distant Drums, really caught fire with legendary sound supervisor Ben Burtt, who created the sound effects for Star Wars and won Oscars for his work on E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Burtt began using the sound snippet as a kind of calling card and then other sound specialists, as an inside joke, found excuses to sneak it into their projects. Think of it as an old-school Easter egg.
The pained wail has appeared in more than 140 movies, according to Hollywood historian and sound editor Steve Lee, who maintains a list here. Among the films: Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Batman Returns, Reservoir Dogs, Toy Story, Spider-Man, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Hellboy and Poltergeist.
From the sound of his recent tweets, Jon is in the home stretch polishing the score,sound and visual effects for IM2. Favreau also used The Wilhelm Scream in
Iron Man. A giant no-prize to the first one who can say where that was.