One of the newest specialty soundtrack releases (and - just maybe - an early contender for one of the best of the year) is Christopher Young's Hard Rain from La La Land Records. The cast and crew really shot on flooded sets; no CGI to be found. I get the strong sense that the movie's box-office failure had a ripple effect on another Paramount release from that year: Snake Eyes.

Hear me out: Water, water everywhere on Hard Rain. Around this time, Brian De Palma is cashing the blank check he received following the massive success on Mission: Impossible. He wants to make another Hitchcockian thriller. Snake Eyes. A giant globe and a massive monsoon are just outside the Atlantic City arena/casino where the movie takes place. The plan is for the tunnel under the arena to be flooded and the villain to be crushed by the globe underwater (a disturbing payoff to one hell of a speech). At least, that's the plan.

Hard Rain comes up dry. Could it have been the so-so script? The cooling on Christian Slater's post-Broken Arrow heat? Or the fact that they actually flooded a soundstage? One can only assume the latter. 

"Holy shit. Did you see the numbers on Hard Rain? We're really taking a bath on this one."

"Well, there was a lot of water involv--"

"Don't! Just don't."

"Say, wasn't there another project we were doing with its characters ending up underwater?"

"No."

"Yeah, with De Palma and Nic Cage--"

"No. There is no underwater ending for that movie. There never was."

That's just my read on things.