Shadow of the Colossus to be featured in upcoming Hollywood film
- March 22, 2007 21:18 PM PST
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Jeremy Roush, editor of Adam Sandler's new film Reign Over Me, explains the thematic importance of his film's inclusion of Sony's Shadow of the Colossus.
By Eugene Huang
Kotaku's Brian Ashcraft recently spoke with Jeremy Roush, one of the editors of the new Adam Sandler film Reign Over Me, which will hit American theaters starting this Friday. An avid gamer himself, Roush petitioned Sandler to include the game Shadow of the Colossus as an integral feature of the film's plot, which tells the story of a man whose life is shattered after the devastating terror attacks of September 11th.
"You could see where someone who was dealing with 9/11 would be engrossed by a giant that keeps collapsing over and over again," he explained.
Roush claims that he first received the idea to include the game after realizing his own father's method of dealing with grief. A veteran of the Vietnam War, Roush's father returned home with post-traumatic stress disorder that left him mentally disabled and unable to support himself. To pass the time, he spent his every waking moment repeatedly watching Aliens on VHS -- so much so that the tape had worn out, forcing him to buy a new copy.
"Aliens is a thinly veiled kind of Vietnam veteran kind of story," Roush observed, "and watching it is a way of thinking about it without telling yourself you are thinking about it."
With the idea of the game's implementation in place, Roush first had to convince Mike Binder, the film's writer and director, that it would be more than just cheap product placement. When Binder agreed that the inclusion of Shadow fit the film thematically, they demonstrated the game to Sandler. At first, Roush was worried that the game's outdated graphics would be a turnoff for the Hollywood star, but Sandler fell in love with it nonetheless.
The only remaining step was to call up Sony Computer Entertainment and request the permission to use the game directly from Fumito Ueda, the game's lead designer. It was awarded a few weeks later.
By the start of filming, both Sandler and co-star Don Cheadle became quite knowledgeable of the ins and outs of Shadow of the Colossus. He mentions one scene in particular where Sandler's charcter Charlie gives a detailed explanation of the game's controls to Cheadle's character Alan, despite the fact that the scene was completely unscripted. The reason for their diligence in learning the game, Roush explains, was the preservation of reality -- both actors had to successfully portray the roles of two friends who play video games together.
"Some of the moments where they failed, we used in the film," adds Roush. "The failure, the frustration and the happiness are all a part of playing the game. It's hard to act in some ways."
