Super Mario Sunshine Easter Egg - Mantas at the Overlook

This discovery was coincidental; I think I'm the only Super Mario Sunshine fan who has read Stephen Kings, "The Shining" front to back. Level 1, "The Manta Storm", in Sirena Beach, features a large, shadow-like manta engulfing the Hotel Delfino. In order to kill it, you must spray it with water, causing it to break into smaller mantas. Once they are dead, they disintergrate into nothing. Why am I stating this? At the end of "The Shining", when Dick Halloran, Danny and Wendy are running from the flaming hotel, Dick notices, "a ghostly manta shape, floating away over the hotel. It was paper thin, like a shadow, and then broke into smaller forms before turning into smoke and drifting away." This seems too close to be mere coincidence. Perhaps one of the developers was a fan of Stephen King, and decided to model a level after this.