To impress PlayStation’s bosses, Team Ico used a Hollywood-style score to pitch Shadow of the Colossus—a score they would later learn belonged to a Sam Raimi Spider-Man film.
Shadow of the Colossus is perhaps best known for its massive sense of scale. While Ico was an insular and quite lonely game, its follow-up felt huge and cinematic (while retaining its loneliness). A major part of this was due to its score, which would always come in at the right time to make you feel heroic, even if the actual acts you were performing were a little more in the grey area.
Speaking to Design Room as part of their “Shadow of the Colossus: An oral history” article, former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden has revealed that the music for Shadow of the Colossus’ first pitch was really memorable, although it never appeared in the final game. Much like the final game, which swells the music at the right time to become something incredibly cinematic and film-like, this original pitch had what felt like a massive Hollywood blockbuster score… Mainly because it was.
“Later on, we found out that was actually the theme music to the original Spider-Man movie,” says Layden (in reference to the Sam Raimi film from 2002, not the 1970s TV movie), with Team Ico using the score as placeholder music. “We probably violated some usage rights,” Layden said, adding, “It was 20 years ago, no harm done, and Sony owns the Spider-Man stuff anyway.”
And to be fair, Danny Elfman’s theme to Spider-Man definitely evokes the same feeling as the major themes in the Shadow of the Colossus score, so I could definitely imagine a version where that song does play (it helps that Design Room linked to a fan recreation of the demo with this music).
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