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The Crow.
Photo: Larry Horricks/Lionsgate
The reboot of The Crow has been gestating for more than 15 years, and now it’s finally ready to hatch. To be fair, there was some omens hovering over the project. Based on James O’Barr’s comic-book series of the same name, the latest film adaptation has seen a revolving door of writers, directors, producers, and stars, making the simple fact that it even has a release date no small feat. Not to mention the fact that the 1994 cult classic isn’t exactly known for its moderate box-office success. Brandon Lee, son of Bruce Lee, tragically died on the set of the first film after being shot by a prop gun.
The new team got Ghost in the Shell and Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders to guide The Crow to a landing. Bill Skarsgård and FKA Twigs snagged lead roles in the film about an undead man who vows to avenge his brutally murdered wife. Now that’s a casting decision that has fan-fiction writers racing to their keyboards at superhero speeds. So what else do we know about the comic-book movie in a time famously mediocre for comic-book movies?
Had this film arrived a decade ago with these stars and this aesthetic, it would have sent the witchy Tumblr girl economy into overdrive. In one first-look image, Eric (Skarsgård) and Shelly (Twigs) do their best interpretation of René Magritte’s The Lovers, kissing despite being separated by a sheer white curtain. In another, the couple share a look beside a campfire with Eric’s evil-eye tattoo peeking out from his T-shirt and “Lullaby” inked above his eyebrow. While Lee’s Eric sports a bob and monochromatic clown makeup à la a Kiss bandmate, the 2024 version opts for heavy black rings around the eyes and a cartoonish smile line drawn in thick eyeliner.
Rock bands Joy Division and the Cure were of no small influence to the director when he was working on the film. “Look, I grew up listening to Joy Division and the Cure, and this movie is a bit like a Cure song — the beauty of melancholy,” Sanders told Vanity Fair in an interview dated February 28. Okay. He decided the project was for him when he realized he could make a “dark romance, something that dealt with loss, grief, and the ethereal veil between life and death and reaching through that.” Sanders hasn’t given us any details on what we can expect plotwise, but he did tell Deadline he wanted to “reimagine The Crow as a foreboding voice of today.”
The cast list has seen higher turnover rates than digital journalism gigs. But despite losing Bradley Cooper, Tom Hiddleston, Luke Evans, Jake Huston, and Jason Momoa, the show will go on. Isabella Wei stars alongside Skarsgård and Twigs as Zadie, while Danny Huston, Laura Birn, Sami Bouajila, and Jordan Bolger join The Crow in undisclosed roles.
The Crow lands onscreen June 7.
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