Spider-Man 2 (2004) score research

[TerminaPlus 0]

Hello!

 

Since long now, I'm looking for the film version of a music you can hear in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2.

I'm desperately looking for the film version of Pizza Man: https://youtu.be/2tVZBiVDWqE

The Danny Elfman version is easily accessible, but in the film, the first half has been re-scored by John Debney.

It is credited as "Special Delivery" in credits.

 

I would really like the clean version of "Special Delivery" and I know there are specialists here. I need your help!

Thank you

[HunterTech 987]

Providing download links for any kind of music (even stuff that isn't officially released) isn't allowed here. Besides, I've already pushed around circles regarding if there was a promo that contained Debney's material for SM2, and the trail remains cold there. You'd have to hope that the eventual official expansion (assuming Sony would be interested) would contain it at this point.

[TerminaPlus 0]

Oh.... Fine. Thank you anyway.

[karelm 2,903]

Spiderman 2 had cues scored by Chris Young (the pivotal subway), Debney and Debbie Lurie.  The complexity with tripple A scores is multiple composers might score a scene so each will claim to have composed for that film and possibly not know what was used.  In some cases the music editor uses any of them which pisses them all off.  The same happened with Spiderman 3 except Elfman made it clear he wanted no part of the project so his music was used without his creative involvement.   In some cases it was edited in.  In other cases, it was recorded using what Elfman composed from Spiderman 2 and dropped in.  I would say 80% of Spiderman 2 was composed by Elfman.  10% by Young, 5% by Debney, 3% by Lurie, 2% by others.  80% of Spiderman 3 was composed by Young, 10 % by Elfman (via preexisting matarial), 5% by Debney, 3% by Lurie, 2% by others.  The problem is Chris probably composed all the cues.  Debney and Lurie composed many more than were used as demos.  Chris also composed alternate takes that weren't used for example.  Think of the Debney and Lurie takes as alternate takes, sometimes they were used.  Lots of times all these are great music, the director just doesn't know what will test well with an audience.  The big deal with Spiderman 2 subway action setpiece (a big budget sequence where maybe 50% or 25% of time and budget is set aside for), Elfman tempo slowed down when subway slowed mimicking what happened on screen.  In contrast Chris Young amped up the tempo raising the tension and the stakes of the subway running off its track and that is what was used.  Both could work, both are good music but Chris's music is what's in the film credited to Elfman.  They read the scene differently. 

[Manakin Skywalker 4,891]

No fully clean version exists anyway as Debney's material hasn't ever surfaced from SM2. All that exists are fan edits using DVD/Blu-ray rips like usual, which of course still contain some sfx.

[Jay 37,322]

That's too bad.  I know most of the Spider-man 3 recordings leaked, by all the different composers.

 

Hopefully a specialty label can get a license for SM2 and release a truly definitive and comprehensive set.  Of course since Elfman's still alive and well, he might not want the other composer's material on the set, even as bonus tracks at the very end.... who knows

[bored 306]

13 hours ago, karelm said:

Elfman made it clear he wanted no part of the project so his music was used without his creative involvement.

That's not entirely true. There was one cue that Elfman (probably grudgingly) composed for the epilogue of Spider-Man 3 that even contains the final reprise of the Peter Parker theme. I guess he wanted to send off his own themes himself (this went unused of course). 

 

20:24

 

 

[karelm 2,903]

15 minutes ago, superultramegaa said:

That's not entirely true. There was one cue that Elfman (probably grudgingly) composed for the epilogue of Spider-Man 3 that even contains the final reprise of the Peter Parker theme. I guess he wanted to send off his own themes himself (this went unused of course). 

 

20:24

 

 

 

Do you know of that was composed by him or arranged by someone else using his material?  I don't think he was involved at all.

[Jay 37,322]

I don't think Elfman was involved in SM3's production at all, but the guys who were had free reign to use all his themes

[bored 306]

Can't say for sure, but every single expanded release that has this cue (plus the person who made the video) always credit Elfman with that. I think it makes sense since the love theme is manipulated in a completely new way, similar to how Elfman did in Spider-Man 2 with "A Really Big Web", and none of the rest of the composers' tracks for this scene use the Peter Parker theme once it transitions to the credits.

 

It really feels like Elfman's last "hurrah" to me and based on how the other composers used his material in SM3, I don't think they could have made that final track. 

[Jay 37,322]

Interesting! 

[ddddeeee 245]

That cue was written by Lurie.

[bored 306]

I know she wrote a lot of cues for "Happy Ending", but the Elfman-credited one sounds way too different from those for that to be believable to me. Got any credits or confirmations of this?

[ddddeeee 245]

4 minutes ago, superultramegaa said:

I know she wrote a lot of cues for "Happy Ending", but the Elfman-credited one sounds way too different from those for that to be believable to me. Got any credits or confirmations of this?

There was an interview with Lurie for (I think) FilmScoreMonthly, and she spoke about writing that cue.

 

She also said she didn't work with Young and worked directly with Raimi.

[Manakin Skywalker 4,891]

At that point in time Elfman practically resented Raimi, so there's no way he would have worked on the film, even to write just one cue. It's not like it was meant to be a sendoff or anything like that, considering a fourth film was already planned and in early development.

[bored 306]

16 minutes ago, ddddeeee said:

There was an interview with Lurie for (I think) FilmScoreMonthly, and she spoke about writing that cue.

 

She also said she didn't work with Young and worked directly with Raimi.

 

Can you provide a link? She could have been referring to just writing the final cue of the movie, but not the specific cue credited to Elfman. 

 

5 minutes ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

At that point in time Elfman practically resented Raimi, so there's no way he would have worked on the film, even to write just one cue. It's not like it was meant to be a sendoff or anything like that, considering a fourth film was already planned and in early development.

 

I'm saying it could have been Elfman's personal send-off to the series since he probably wouldn't have done the 4th film. I know he did work with Young a bit on incorporating the original themes so that's why I think it's possible he wrote one cue. 

[crocodile 7,990]

12 hours ago, Jay said:

That's too bad.  I know most of the Spider-man 3 recordings leaked, by all the different composers.

 

Hopefully a specialty label can get a license for SM2 and release a truly definitive and comprehensive set.  Of course since Elfman's still alive and well, he might not want the other composer's material on the set, even as bonus tracks at the very end.... who knows

The only semi-realistic solution would be to place all the additional music on separate disc...or two. But yeah, I cansee that happening either. 

 

Karol

[HunterTech 987]

On 14/05/2021 at 8:19 AM, superultramegaa said:

I know she wrote a lot of cues for "Happy Ending", but the Elfman-credited one sounds way too different from those for that to be believable to me. Got any credits or confirmations of this?

 

It's literally credited in the music section of the end credits (which also mention that any cue by Elfman would've been pulled straight from SM1-2):

https://www.soundtrack.net/movie/spider-man-3/

 

There is indeed a cue variant within one of the Lurie promos that has "Danny Elfman" as the sub title, but it's so different from everything else that I'm convinced it's an alt for the last cue in Spidey 2 that Deborah decided to record for whatever reason.

[ddddeeee 245]

Here's the Deborah Lurie interview, though you have to subscribe to FSM to access it.

 

https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/fsmonline/story.cfm?maID=879

 

Elfman spoke about how Raimi said that he missed him on Spider-Man 3 in an Oz interview (he had signed on to score Spider-Man 4), so I really don't think he had anything to do with 3 at all.

[HunterTech 987]

I could also point to the interview Young himself did in promoting SM3, where he explicitly pointed out Debney and Lurie as the only other contributors Sony brought on to the project.

[bored 306]

Fair enough. Good for Lurie then, being able to capture Elfman's sound so well for that unused ending.

[HunterTech 987]

On 5/13/2021 at 5:20 PM, karelm said:

Spiderman 2 had cues scored by Chris Young (the pivotal subway), Debney and Debbie Lurie.  The complexity with tripple A scores is multiple composers might score a scene so each will claim to have composed for that film and possibly not know what was used.  In some cases the music editor uses any of them which pisses them all off.  The same happened with Spiderman 3 except Elfman made it clear he wanted no part of the project so his music was used without his creative involvement.   In some cases it was edited in.  In other cases, it was recorded using what Elfman composed from Spiderman 2 and dropped in.  I would say 80% of Spiderman 2 was composed by Elfman.  10% by Young, 5% by Debney, 3% by Lurie, 2% by others.  80% of Spiderman 3 was composed by Young, 10 % by Elfman (via preexisting matarial), 5% by Debney, 3% by Lurie, 2% by others.  The problem is Chris probably composed all the cues.  Debney and Lurie composed many more than were used as demos.  Chris also composed alternate takes that weren't used for example.  Think of the Debney and Lurie takes as alternate takes, sometimes they were used.  Lots of times all these are great music, the director just doesn't know what will test well with an audience.  The big deal with Spiderman 2 subway action setpiece (a big budget sequence where maybe 50% or 25% of time and budget is set aside for), Elfman tempo slowed down when subway slowed mimicking what happened on screen.  In contrast Chris Young amped up the tempo raising the tension and the stakes of the subway running off its track and that is what was used.  Both could work, both are good music but Chris's music is what's in the film credited to Elfman.  They read the scene differently. 

A bit late on this, but here's a few things I wanted to respond to:

• Lurie had no involvement in Spidey 2, only being relegated to Spidey 3 as a result of Elfman's absence. Young and Debney are only two consistent names in the involvement of the sequels. While IMDB does list Steve Bartek, Marc Bonilla, and Joseph LoDuca as part of the additional composer lot, there's no real indication as to what their exact contributions are. I'll assume they handled source music duties.
• I'm not entirely sure if I follow what your breakdowns are supposed to reflect, since Elfman and Young did get to finish their original work prior to the others being involved. I'm going to assume these are for the final film, to which the end credits of the sequels are helpful in breaking down what the exact extent of the additional composer's involvements were (as some of these percentages aren't quite accurate).
• I don't know if I fully buy your stories about all this extra music existing due to the editors wanting various options. For Spidey 2: the fallout between Elfman and Raimi over the temp and general feel of certain scenes has already been well documented. For Spidey 3: Amy Pascal and Sony were pretty upfront about the score needing to feel more Elfman-y, hence getting Lurie and bringing back Debney. And yet, the amount of overlap between what scenes those two rescored for SM3 does suggest that they were really trying to get just the right feel for these moments. Even Young has key revisions in the Editor's Cut that differs from what's been leaked. So I imagine it played a factor, but wasn't the main reason.
• More a general note I wanted to write: I reckon what you mentioned about Elfman music being edited in from previous films/taken from the writings of SM2 for Spidey 3 more has to do with the studio deciding to stick with the temp track, out of a lack of time. These would've been real last minute choices, so I'm not surprised that they could only re-record so much. And yet, given how much Raimi adored the temp for 2, I wouldn't be surprised if he was more approving of it there (especially with how much they would've copy pasted from 1). The ironic thing is that some of these tracked/rerecorded cues are tracks that went unused in Spidey 2, so at least that material finally got some use in the end.
• I have no idea if audience feedback played a part in deciding some of the score alterations. The train sequence is the one area where I'm not sure what the temp track was or if Young even followed one, so it could've been the case there. The final scene with Peter and MJ in SM3 also could be a contender, given the sheer amount of alternates that particular sequence has. Never say never, but I'm more willing to believe that a lot of it more had to do with Raimi just wanting such a specific feel for these moments.

[bruce marshall 1,315]

Whats the relationship of LUrie and Elfman.

? Just got "9" which has a dual authorship.