With Release Moved Up A Year, 'The Crow' Remake Shares First Look And Trailer In Under Three Weeks
It’s going to be quite the stuffed marketing campaign for the long-gestating remake
On February 21, it was announced by Lionsgate that the John Wick spin-off movie Ballerina would be switching release dates with their long-in-the-works remake of The Crow, trading the first week in June of this year (June 7) for the same weekend next year, June 6. However, such a jump means the The Crow remake has only three and a half months of marketing before its release. Less than a week later, it began with a feature piece in Vanity Fair.
This remake, directed by Snow White and the Huntsman and Scarlett Johansson-starring Ghost in the Shell director Rupert Sanders stars It’s Bill Skarsgård as Eric Draven, the final role for Brandon Lee, son of Bruce Lee who starred in the 1994 original film but died on set, accidentally shot and killed in a firearms stunt gone very wrong. An adaptation of a graphic novel, its dark, moody and broody atmosphere made it a prime target to ride the coattails of 1989’s Batman. Draven, who, along with his soulmate fiancée, Shelly Webster, played in this version by FKA Twigs, is brutally murdered by the demons of Shelly’s past, seemingly led by if not in the sole form of a character played by Danny Huston. Given the chance to save his true love while in a limbo state of living and dead, walking the line between the natural and supernatural worlds, Draven sets out to avenge himself and his love.
“What drew me to this was the opportunity to make a dark romance, something that dealt with loss, grief, and the ethereal veil between life and death and reaching through that,” says Sanders, who at the thought of beginning to sound emo laughs and adds, “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.”
Come Thursday and the trailer has been released. One scene sees Eric shoot a gun through his own chest against an attacker, going on to remove a sword from within him for the final blow. It features voiceover that says: “When someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes something so bad happens that the soul cannot rest. Until you put the wrong things right.” It’s also been revealed that the film’s cast includes Danny Huston, Isabella Wei, Laura Birn, Sami Bouajila and Jordan Bolger. True love never killed so good. Watch the trailer below.
Sources: Vanity Fair, Deadline (1, 2)