The Crow

While working on The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014), Luke Evans held a live Q&A event on Facebook. Among the questions he answered personally, when asked about joining the reboot of "The Crow" as the lead character, Evans said he was inclined to leave the project because he felt unworthy of playing the late Brandon Lee's most iconic role.

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Even before the film's release, Bill Skarsgård criticized the decision to change the original ending in favor of a sequel, stating he "preferred something more definitive." However, during promotional interviews he was forbidden by the studio from elaborating on the subject.

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The opening scene featuring a white horse injured by barbed wire is a nod to James O'Barr's comic book "The Crow." In the comic, Eric sees a white horse running and becoming caught in barbed wire.

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Out of respect for Brandon Lee and because of the tragedy that occurred on the set of The Crow (1994), the producers of this film banned real firearms on their set.

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Eric's spirit guide Kronos (played by Sami Bouajila) is based on the Skull Cowboy from the comic book. This character was also originally meant to appear in The Crow (1994), played by actor Michael Berryman. The Cowboy was to be another dead soul who wanders the Earth and guides Eric on his return, specifically warning him that any action that deviates from his mission of revenge would cost him his invulnerability. When Eric later decides to help others anyway, he continues to risk his life and is wounded several times. However, most of the Cowboy's scenes had already been cut during filming because they felt the character's appearance clashed with the rest of the film; after actor Brandon Lee's accidental death on set, it was decided to remove the entire subplot and instead tie Eric's invulnerability to the well-being of his crow companion. This new version of The Crow brings back the spirit guide, but explains the return of Eric's vulnerability as a consequence of his love for Shelly not being pure.

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Luke Evans was cast but withdrew from the lead role on January 25, 2015. Jack Huston was cast but left due to scheduling conflicts. Jack's uncle Danny Huston ultimately took on the role of Vincent Roeg in the film.

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Danny Huston was first set to take on the villain role in 2015 but withdrew from the film due to scheduling conflicts. Production stalled for more than six and a half years, which allowed Huston to return to play the villain now that he was available.

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Although this is not a remake of The Crow (1994), there are several similar shots made as a tribute to the first adaptation of the comic book, such as Eric applying his makeup while looking into a broken mirror and being stabbed in the back with a sword during the opera scene.

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Graphic designer Nikola Prijic said the idea for the poem tattoo on Eric's back seen in the film came from Bill Skarsgård. The poem is titled "Despair" by H. P. Lovecraft.

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The music piece playing in the scene where Eric prepares to confront Vincent at the opera house and Vincent arrives there is Enya's "Boadicea." The historical figure the piece is named after, Boadicea (or Boudica), is a symbol of justice, something Eric also fights for in the film.

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In a 2024 interview with Fangoria, Rupert Sanders said the following about shooting the film's title sequence and some of its visual themes: "Drowning people in liquids is very cinematic, I don't know why. Bill Skarsgård was great. We didn't have the luxury of a lot of hot baths and we were shooting at night, mostly night shoots in Prague. It wasn't very comfortable, but Bill was about to be pushed into piles of shallow water. We did an exhausting shoot; we did a lot with a very complex operation and a smaller budget. We shot my first film in 90 days! We were doing complex work and we were all exhausted, and on the last day I said to Bill: 'I've had this idea for a title sequence. We have a high-speed camera here, would you get in there and thrash around and punch and vomit black liquid?' 'Of course,' he said. He got into a slightly cold, dispiriting bathtub behind the sound stage and ran back and forth at high speed. It's a really eye-opening piece in the title sequence and later in the film. A lot of it was about falling and sinking and how you divide those two worlds in an organic and not very believable way. I wanted there to be a fairly intimate connection between our world and the other one. This portal of liquid and many shrouded characters is another symbol there, 'We can't touch them because they're now separated.' A thin veil separates them, and that's an image that recurs throughout the film. There's a moment where he returns to the apartment and kisses Shelly from behind this veil. She's there but not there, the mannequins are all covered in plastic sheets. There are a lot of thematic images there that I think people will perhaps begin to understand or see more of on a second and third viewing. There's a great richness to it."

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In May 2018, director Corin Hardy and Jason Momoa left the project. The film was in pre-production, and it was reported to be 5 weeks from the start of shooting. Creative differences were the stated reason behind their departures. As of March 2020, no further updates were made about the film.

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In one scene of the film, a poster for the 1995 film Crying Freeman (1995) is visible on a wall. The film starred Mark Dacascos. In 1998, Dacascos took on the role of Eric Draven in The Crow: Stairway to Heaven (1998), the television adaptation of "The Crow" that was generally based on The Crow (1994).

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This is producer Edward R. Pressman's last film. He died on January 11, 2023, while the film was in post-production.

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Bradley Cooper, Mark Wahlberg, Channing Tatum, Robert Pattinson, James McAvoy, Tom Hiddleston, Alexander Skarsgård, Sam Witwer, Jack Huston, Ryan Gosling, Nicholas Hoult, Jack O'Connell, Luke Evans and Jason Momoa were considered to play Eric Draven, and Pattinson's ex-girlfriend Kristen Stewart was considered to play Shelley Webster before Alexander's brother Bill. It was announced that Skarsgård was confirmed for the role of Draven and that Pattinson's ex-girlfriend FKA twigs was confirmed for the role of Webster.

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Tony Todd, who played Grange in the original film, shared a link on his Twitter/X account to a negative review about the remake, implying that he shared the sentiment.

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At the climax, as Roeg is dragged from a pool of water into Hell, numerous snake-like creatures can be seen surrounding him. The TV series The Crow: Stairway to Heaven (1998) introduced the idea of the Snake, The Crow's evil counterpart. Also, Shelly's return from the afterlife probably happened in the series finale.

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The film was released on the 30th anniversary of the original The Crow (1994).

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Darija Pavlovicova, who plays the young pianist Gray, shared photos on Instagram showing that there were several scenes in which Danny Huston's character tortures her but which did not make it into the final cut. In the film, what happens to her is left unresolved.

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The film is the second adaptation based on James O'Barr's comic book series "The Crow," though contrary to what many people think, it is not a direct remake of Brandon Lee's film of the same name, The Crow (1994).

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At various points in the film's development, F. Javier Gutiérrez, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Stephen Norrington and Corin Hardy took on directing duties.

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According to director Rupert Sanders, Eric Draven's appearance does not come from James O'Barr's source comic book series or from tragic star Brandon Lee's take on the character in Alex Proyas's original film. Instead, the director drew on his star's natural qualities and looked to his own background. "I think the beauty of Bill is that he has a disturbing beauty, and as he transforms after his loss, he becomes something he can't control," Sanders told Vanity Fair. "That famous quote: 'He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster.' That look was me in the '90s when I was doing the London squat scene with Post Malone and Lil Peep [mixed with some modern influences]. I hope people who are 19 today look at him and say, 'That guy is us.'" Sanders added that this image is from "the moment we realize bad things are coming."

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With this film, Bill Skarsgård becomes the third actor to portray the character Eric Draven/The Crow. The first actor is Brandon Lee, who played the character in The Crow (1994). The second is Mark Dacascos, who played the character in the television series The Crow: Stairway to Heaven (1998).

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Development began in 2008 when Stephen Norrington was attached to direct.

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Bill Skarsgård's The Crow makeup strongly recalls his Pennywise makeup in It (2017) and It: Chapter Two (2019).

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Rochelle Davis, who played young Sarah in The Crow (1994), offered her own thoughts on Bill Skarsgård's version of Eric Draven, summing up with a simple "Yuck" much of the sentiment already circulating widely online. Suggesting she hated the character's "dingy, dirty, grungy" look, Davis argued that out of respect for the late actor, the producers should have chosen someone who looked more like Brandon Lee. She also wished for more diversity in the cast and said anyone other than a heterosexual white man would have been a better choice.

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