Intrada presents an expanded edition of Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids (2001). Across Rodriquez's body of work his name appears as writer, director, producer, cinematographer, editor and composer, among others. Since his mind is working in all those places, he enjoys starting the scoring process as early as possible. The musical journey for Spy Kids was more unconventional, yet the result was a cohesive score that brought the film’s crazy world to vivid life. Rodriguez needed a song for the main antagonist and wanted something in the realm of Danny Elfman’s style, so he reached out to Elfman himself. Unfortunately, Elfman could only write one song due to his schedule—“Floop’s Song (Cruel World)." Next, Hans Zimmer and Harry Gregson-Williams screened and loved the film, but ultimately Zimmer could not take on the project. Gregson-Williams was available, however, and came up with some cues and ideas based on a guitar tune he wrote. This became known as the “Cortez Family” theme. Then Gregson-Williams had to leave the project, so Rodriquez himself took over some of the scoring duties. A few months later, Gavin Greenaway and Heitor Pereira adapted Rodriguez's melodies. By then Elfman was free and able to compose additional music for the film, including the score's prominent action theme. With all these hands involved, Rodriguez needed one composer to come in and orchestrate, conduct and expand on the Elfman material as well as provide additional scoring to tie everything together. Enter composer John Debney who masterfully assembled everything into a coherent work in just two weeks.
For this new release done with the generous cooperation of Paramount Pictures, CD producer Stéphane Humez scoured through all the recordings and pulled together a 2-CD set featuring all the music. CD 1 is the complete score as it appears in the film. Disc 2 features a wealth of alternates, including the Gregson-Williams scoring that was largely updated after he left the project. The disc concludes with Robert Rodriguez's Sketchbook, a suite of demos of his original themes. The album was mastered by Maxime Marion with liner notes by Kaya Savas.
Spy Kids follows siblings Carmen and Juni Cortez, who discover that their seemingly ordinary parents are actually retired secret agents. When their parents are kidnapped by an evil scientist, the children must become spies themselves, using high-tech gadgets and their own courage to rescue their mom and dad. What follows is an energetic colorful adventure that launched a franchise.
