The Crow is one of the best revenge movies of all time and one of the best of the ’90s. The Alex Proyas-directed film packs every aspect of the “get even” genre into a lean 100-minute outing while unknowingly burying a time capsule for the decade. It’s a perfect storm of actors, script, production, and direction. It’s dark and moody with brutal fight scenes, satisfying kills, and Doc Martens splashing through rain-flooded streets. And black. Lots and lots of black.
Expounding further on the ’90s, protagonist Eric Draven (Brandon Lee, in his tragically final, excellent performance) feels like your chosen character in a vintage beat ‘em up Super Nintendo game. The Crow has a simple story and offers Draven a simple task. He and his fiancé are viciously murdered by a pack of feral goons. He’s resurrected, and for revenge and salvation, he fights his way through the bosses to reach the big bad guy in the tower.
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Flash forward to the present, the era of the remake. For years, fans have collectively groaned through rumors and remakes of classics like Back to the Future, Friday the 13th, RoboCop, etc. And now The Crow has been added to the reboot slate.
Bill Skarsgård Has the Look
Miramax Films
Mired for over a decade in rights battles, financial woes, and cast/director shuffling, the Crow remake is earmarked to start filming in June 2022. Bill Skarsgård (Pennywise the Dancing Clown in It and It Chapter Two) will star as Eric Draven/The Crow, with English singer/songwriter FGA Twigs in the fiancé role and relatively unknown director Rupert Sanders directing.
The Skarsgård casting brings some optimism as the lead will (mostly) make this movie. His leading man resume is thin, but Skarsgård is a solid choice to don the black trench coat. He definitely has the look and imposing frame; you can picture him in the white and black makeup stalking the streets and rooftops.
Skarsgård is best known for his break-out role as Pennywise the Dancing Clown in It and It Chapter Two. The performance proves he can play a scary ghoul in weird face paint who scares the absolute hell out of everyone he meets. More importantly, his turn as Pennywise sees Skarsgård matching, if not topping, an iconic performance. Tim Curry’s Pennywise single-handedly made clowns scary. Curry haunted the dreams of Generation X and millennials alike as Pennywise in the made-for-TV It movie. Starring in a more polished product, Skarsgård still upped the scary to new levels with his iteration of Pennywise.
Skarsgård has shown range in his limited time as a leading man. He can do black humor (Villains) and, more importantly, an anguished grieving spouse (The Devil All the Time). It’s a lean list of great turns, but we don’t know that it will be enough to live up to the big black boots he’s being asked to fill.
Brandon Lee’s performance in the Crow is simply brilliant. His charisma, rage, and dark humor brought out a character that could have easily been left languishing in the one-dimensional. Lee clearly put everything he had into the role of Eric Draven. As much potential as Skarsgård has, that doesn’t account for the rest of the cast. Brandon Lee was the engine of the original, but the rest of the vehicle was also exceptionally well-made. They could nail it with the Skarsgård casting, but what about the rest of the roster?
Filling Out the Cast of The Crow Reboot
Dimension Films
Ernie Hudson as grizzled but hopeful beat cop Daryl Albrecht, Rochelle Davis as street smart skater Sarah, and even the barely speaking Sofia Shinas as Draven’s fiancé Shelly Webster. These supporting performances and their chemistry with Draven made for a fully-realized story and movie.
The Crow didn’t just slap together a roving gang of cliché thugs for its antagonists. Each villain is a fully realized and fleshed-out character. Each actor makes you absolutely hate their respective player, leading to lunging fist swings each time one of them is picked off by Draven. The remake will have to replicate a well-rounded stable of dirtbags to be a full success. These villains all get top scores, from knife-wielding sociopath Tin-Tin (Laurence Mason) to the depraved Funboy (Michael Massee) right up the ladder to Top Dollar (Michael Wincott), the chief architect of chaos in the unnamed setting city.
Speaking of which, the razed, rotting town itself is an additional character, much like the Gotham City production design should have had cast billing in The Batman. Graffiti and grime-caked gothic buildings tower over the story, with the ample dark corners and alleys making for an unnerving watch. The production design picked up where Tim Burton’s two Batman films left off and then jacked up the crime rate by 80 percent.
In the end, The Crow remake will be a fine movie with a great leading performance. However, everything about the original is going to be extremely hard to match, never mind top. And ultimately, is this remake even necessary? Not really. Will it be as good as or better than the original? Not a chance. There’s too much Skarsgård and company have to get right and too much to get wrong.
