“The Crow” director Rupert Sanders says his reimagining 1994 cult-classic film starring the late Brandon Lee is a “very scrappy indie movie,” despite its $50-million budget and Lionsgate backing.
“There’s nothing to do with Hollywood in this movie at all,” Sanders told Empire magazine of his remake (and it’s most definitely a remake). “It’s a very scrappy indie movie.”
Sanders said his screenwriters Zach Baylin and William Schneider were “able to remain close to the center and the darkness and the violence that’s in the graphic novel” more so than the original film.
He added, “The only reason we could do that is because it’s not a studio movie.”
“The Crow” centers on soulmates Eric Draven (Skarsgård) and Shelly Webster (FKA Twigs) who are brutally murdered when the demons of her dark past catch up with them, the synopsis states. Given the chance to save his true love by sacrificing himself, Eric sets out to seek merciless revenge on their killers, traversing the worlds of the living and the dead to put the wrong things right.
Sanders hopes his version of “The Crow” can help to usher in sort of a throwback era in film — a gritty one.
“I really hope we’re in for another kind of ‘Easy Rider,’ ‘Raging Bull‘ period of having to make these more down-and-dirty films that still feel like big epic movies [but] are weirder and stranger,” Sanders said. “You have to be more adept at making things more efficiently, that are emotionally resonant, and not just spectacle.”
Sanders previously told Vanity Fair that “The Crow” (2024) will honor the original film’s legacy, especially since original filmmaker Alex Proyas slammed the remake all together.
“Brandon was an original voice and I think he will always be synonymous with ‘The Crow’ and I hope he’s proud of what we’ve done and how we’ve brought the story back again. His soul is very much alive in this film,” Sanders said. “There’s a real fragility and beauty to his version of the Crow, and I think Bill feels like he is a successor to that.”
Skarsgård takes over the title character role that Bruce Lee’s son Brandon Lee played in the original feature. Lee was killed on set during the final days of production when a prop gun fired.
“The Crow” has been set for various remakes over the past three decades, with Mark Wahlberg, Jason Momoa, Bradley Cooper, James McAvoy, Tom Hiddleston, and Skarsgård’s own brother Alexander Skarsgård all previously attached to different iterations prior to Sanders’ film, which was also delayed numerous times. “The Crow” was initially slated for a June 2024 release; the film will now be out in theaters August 23, 2024.
In the press notes for the upcoming feature, Skarsgård shared that he was “a huge fan of the original film growing up as a kid and was so honored to take on the role of Eric Draven. But really what drew me to it was what Rupert Sanders wanted to do with it. He wanted to completely reimagine the story and the character and tailor it towards a modern audience. It’s a character that I know many revere and have a strong connection to — he is unlike any I’ve ever taken on before.”
