Lionsgate has released a new photo from The Crow, giving fans a different look at Bill Skarsgård’s Eric. The character, who rises from the dead to avenge his and his girlfriend’s murder, is the central protagonist of the film and was previously brought to the screen by Brandon Lee, the son of Hollywood icon Bruce Lee. Early looks at Skarsgård’s take on the character have been divisive, with some fans ready to see what a grittier, more comics-accurate take on the story will be like and others mocking his appearance, often drawing comparisons to Jared Leto’s Joker from Suicide Squad.
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You can see the latest photo below.
“There’s nothing to do with Hollywood in this movie at all,” director Rupert Sanders told Empire, who debuted the image. “It’s a very scrappy indie movie.”
“Scrappy” might be a good descriptor for the movie which, despite a familiar IP and lots of famous names attached, seemed like it might never come out.
The Crow has been one of the most troubled productions in recent memory, trading off directors, stars, and even studios numerous times over the life of its development and production. The movie stars Skarsgård (IT), singer-songwriter FKA twigs (Honeyboy), and Danny Huston (Succession) and is reportedly a full restart of the story, meaning that it’s likely adapting the same set of comics as the first The Crow movie, which was released in 1994.
That film was a huge success, with a hit soundtrack and an aesthetic that was five years ahead of its time. The movie spawned three sequels, The Crow: City of Angels (1996); The Crow: Salvation (2000); and The Crow: Wicked Prayer (2005), although it pretty quickly became a direct-to-DVD series.
The revived The Crow has gone through a number of directors, stars, and even studios in the last decade in its long and troubled road to the big screen. Even after news came out that the movie had wrapped production, it didn’t seem like a real thing that people would be actually able to watch.
The animating philosophy behind the new movie has always seemingly been to make a movie that closely resembles James O’Barr’s original comics — that’s something O’Barr was talking about nearly a decade ago at convention appearances, and something Sanders is boasting about in the Empire interview.
The Crow is directed by Rupert Sanders (Foundation, Ghost in the Shell, Snow White and The Huntsman) and written by Zach Baylin (King Richard, upcoming Creed III). Producers are Molly Hassell (Braven, Terminal), Victor Hadida (Resident Evil and Silent Hill franchises), John Jencks (Honest Thief, Guns Akimbo), and Edward R. Pressman (American Psycho, The Crow, Wall Street).
The Crow will be in theaters on August 23rd.
