Sephiroth is easily the most iconic Final Fantasy villain of all time and it turns out that he was inspired by one of the most famous thrillers ever made, as one of his creators has cited Jaws as one of the biggest inspirations for the character.
The main antagonist at the start of Final Fantasy VII is the Shinra Corporation, which is draining the life of the planet in massive Mako Reactors in order to create energy. The villain role is passed to a mysterious figure known as Sephiroth, who impales President Shinra and is pursued across the world by the members of AVALANCHE. It's soon discovered that members of the party have a history with Sephiroth and they want to see him dealt with for good.
The player doesn't get a glimpse of Sephiroth until the Kalm flashback in Final Fantasy VII, which happens several hours into the game. Final Fantasy VII director/Final Fantasy VII Remake producer Yoshinori Kitase was recently interviewed by AEW's Kenny Omega, and he revealed that one of the chief inspirations for Sephiroth was the movie Jaws.
"I wanted Sephiroth to be not so much of a physical villain, more of an unknown threat that people only heard rumors about. Not many people had seen him, but the fear could be felt from the rumors of his existence. I drew a lot of inspiration from the movie Jaws. It was a shark movie, but you never saw the shark until long into the movie. Rather than seeing the threat, knowing, and hearing of the threat was appealing to me, and I drew from this. Sephiroth is not present in the beginning of the game but you hear his rumors and fear him."
It seems that the philosophy of building up to Sephiroth's reveal has been lost in Final Fantasy VII Remake. The game is meant to be an expanded take on the Midgar section of the original story, so Sephiroth shouldn't show up in the game at all. Sephiroth has been plastered all over the promotional material for the game and the trailers have revealed that he will be showing up a lot earlier in the story this time around.
It might have made more sense for the developers to focus on the Shinra Corporation as the villains of Final Fantasy VII Remake while saving Sephiroth's new appearance for a post-credits scene. The popularity of Sephiroth is such that this won't do, and he's going to have a much bigger role in Final Fantasy VII Remake than he ever did in Final Fantasy VII as a result.
Final Fantasy VII Remake will be released for PlayStation 4 on April 10, 2020.
Source: Square Enix/YouTube