Written by Edwin Francisco
The Crow flies again with a film reboot with Bill Skarsgård as Eric Draven. This isn’t a scoop; it’s official.
The Crow has been in development for quite some time now. The original comic of The Crow came out in 1989, created by James O’Barr. The Crow revolved around avenging the death of Eric Draven’s fiance and his own. A resurrected Draven hunts down the murderers.
Part Batman, part Death Wish, The Crow is a Gothic revenge fantasy that transcends time.
Alex Proyas directed 1994’s The Crow film. The movie starred Brandon Lee, the son of Bruce Lee.
Bill Skarsgård Is The Crow In New Reboot
Image: Bad Robot Productions
There were a lot of expectations that the movie would be good for Lee’s career. Sadly, Lee ultimately lost his life in a prop gun accident during filming. Thus, Proyas completed The Crow with clever use of doubles and CGI. Afterwards, The Crow became a sleeper hit. It earned $93.7 million out of a $23 million budget.
Furthermore, the film was revolutionary. In fact, It was the first R-rated comic-book superhero movie in the U.S. (Dolph Lundgren’s 1989 The Punisher would’ve been first but went to video in America.)
There were three sequels; however, none of them clicked. For the most part, fans dismissed The Crow: City of Angels (1996), The Crow: Salvation (2000) and The Crow: Wicked Prayer (2005) as pale imitations.
In addition, a TV series called The Crow: Stairway to Heaven ran from 1998-1999 with 22 episodes. The series starred Mark Dacascos (John Wick 3).
But it didn’t capture what made the original film successful, either. Simply put, nobody could fill Lee’s iconic shoes.
Nevertheless, Bill Skarsgård will try now. In the It films, Bill Skarsgård played Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Critics and fans showered Bill Skarsgård with praise as Stephen King’s demonic entity. New director Rupert Sanders hopes Bill Skarsgård can deliver that level of intense supernatural horror.
Various filmmakers have tried to reboot The Crow for years. Rob Zombie was supposed to direct one in the late ’90s.
However, it didn’t push through.
Bill Skarsgård Is The Crow In New Reboot
Image: Miramax
In 2013, Luke Evans going to play Draven with F. Javier Reyes as the director. Reyes even planned a literal page-by-page adaptation of the book a la Zack Snyder‘s Watchmen. Bankruptcy cancelled the project. In 2017, Jason Momoa signed on to star in another adaptation. Again, Momoa left the project in 2018.
Will Bill Skarsgård be the chosen one?
Sanders doesn’t have a long list of films under his belt as a director. He has done Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) and Ghost In the Shell (2017). Neither of them inject confidence but time will tell if this Crow takes flight or is grounded.
The project is set to start filming in June 2022.