It’s the Booze Talkin: Here comes The Crow reboot…

Last Updated on July 23, 2021

Here Comes The Crow Reboot

There’s no avoiding it any longer. With new details emerging over the weekend it looks like THE CROW reboot is finally ready to move forward and try to kick-start a franchise that seemed doomed the moment Brandon Lee, star of the original film, died during production. Is there any hope in updating such a cult favorite? Have the horrible sequels not taught us to leave the story alone? Surprisingly, I think this movie might have a chance. Let’s take a look at some of the dos and don’ts to make this shit right.

If THE DARK NIGHT and WATCHMEN have taught us anything the last few years it’s that there’s room for a darker, more adult comic book adaptation. The original CROW was way ahead of it’s time in this aspect but feels a little watered down by today’s standards. Don’t let the graphic novel ink fool you, Eric Draven is not a super hero by any means. He’s a resurrected love-torn vigilante, hell-bent on revenge while dealing with the pain of a shattered heart. Dude is a little more complex than, say, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. I found Lee’s Draven a little too talky in the original film. A little less hanging out with cops and a little more addressing of the personal demons and suicidal tendencies and we might have ourselves the perfect anti-hero.

The casting of said anti-hero will be the most important part. For what was asked of him, Lee gave a fantastic performance and the postmortem cult status he received will be hard to forget when trying to find a replacement. Film officials have stated “a major actor” has been offered the role. What else are they going to say? I’m sure somebody considered Edward Furlong a “major actor” too, while promoting THE CROW: WICKED PRAYER. Let’s not get too excited yet.

Almost as important will be the casting of the film’s villains. The original sported a top-notch trio of baddies in Michael Wincott, David Patrick Kelly, and Tony Todd (FIRE IT UP! FIRE IT UP!). There’s a special kind of hate that needs to be involved with these characters.

There is one bit of info from the latest update that kind of scares me. Producer, Edward Pressman, says, while raving about the just finished script, “The Crow itself is a creature in this movie – it’s not just a bird. It’s got a personality and a character. Not like Godzilla exactly, but it’s very different….” Why even mention Godzilla in the same sentence? You know what it makes me think of? Godzilla. The Crow was simply that in the original film – a crow. And other than being able to communicate with Draven in the comic, it wasn’t that much different there either. Now all I can think about is some sort of giant monster that breathes fire and swoops down to peck peoples heads off.

Maybe it’s the booze talking but I can’t help but be interested in how it all turns out. A dark, sadistic Crow movie that doesn’t stray too far from the book and grabs a hard R rating could do wonders for the comic book movie genre. The potential is there. They just need to look under that giant dark cloud to find it.