[MrFurious]

Noticed that a few of the 80s action films use a very simular steel drum theme tune,commando has it and so does another 48 hours which is on itv now,why is this?and how many more can you think of with this music

[Mr.D]

Miami Vice has a bit of the old oil drums in it.

48 hours as well maybe

[sleepyone]

If the studio owns a particular piece (can they do this?), It would probably be in their interests (money saving wise) to use it as often as possible.

See Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow using Stargate SG1 music over the tralier. Both productions by Paramount.

On the same subject, I've noticed the same background music being used over both Angel and Buffy during fight scenes, i'm sure this music was originaly on a PC game called Nocturne from years back. Anyone else notice this or am I just off my head.

[Mr.D]

Trailers are commonly completed before the film is finished using a temp soundtrack which can be music from another film or tracks that don't appear in the finished movie. The soundtrack is one of the last things completed on a film.

Its not really important who owns the rights as owing to the strange way in which copyright manifests itself someone will have to be paid for it even if the studio/distributor owns the rights.

[r47463]

Scream 2 has the music from Broken Arrow. It usually came on when Dewey was staring into space looking perplexed. I found it most amusing, although at the time wished I was watching Broken Arrow instead.

[John Pickles]

Originally Posted by MrFurious

Noticed that a few of the 80s action films use a very simular steel drum theme tune,commando has it and so does another 48 hours which is on itv now,why is this?and how many more can you think of with this music

That's because both scores were written by James Horner. Good as he is, he does have a habit of 'recycling' some of his themes. In addition to the above, some cues from Star Trek II crop up in Cocoon. I've collected film scores for more years than I care to remember, and I really like Horner's work, but some of it is so similar. I'm usually able to tell he's written the score before his name appears on the credits.

[chard]

the one that I have always been curious about is the coincidental use of the same tango tune in 3 films that came out around the same time....

the opening restaurant scene in Schindlers List
True Lies
Scent of a Woman

all the same tune....

[John Woo Style]

The trailer for The Two Towers included a marginally changed version of the theme from Requiem for a Dream... and several parts of Spiderman 2 (such as the scene with the "creation" of Doc Ock) had even less changed cues from Hellbound: Hellraiser II