Just as it was beginning to feel like The Crow might never see the light of day, Vanity Fair (via FearHQ.com) has shared a first look at Rupert Sanders' (Ghost in the Shell) reboot starring John Wick: Chapter 4's Bill Skarsgård.
The actor inherits the iconic role of Eric Draven, with FKA Twigs joining him as Shelly. Both are murdered when her past catches up to her, leaving Eric - caught between life and death - to avenge their respective demise at the hands of Danny Huston's demonic villain.
"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," the filmmaker explains. "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."
We recently learned that The Crow is scheduled to be released in theaters on June 7 and has big shoes to fill seeing as it follows the cult classic starring the late Brandon Lee.
The original became infamous after the son of Bruce Lee was shot and killed in a firearms stunt gone wrong; he was on the cusp of becoming a huge action star in Hollywood and this new take has clearly pulled inspiration from the 1994 movie along with James O'Barr's graphic novel.
"Obviously, it was a terrible tragedy, and it’s definitely something that we’ve always had in mind through the making of the film," Sanders says of Skarsgård's predecessor. "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. 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."
Based on the image shared in the X post below (more can be seen by visiting Vanity Fair's website), this Eric will be a lot more grounded in reality and will sport facial tattoos in place of that striking white face paint. As you might expect, the response to this change on social media has been decidedly mixed.
"I think the beauty of Bill is that he has a disturbing beauty, and as he transforms through his loss he becomes this thing that even he can’t control. It’s that famous line: 'Whoever fights monsters must be careful that they don’t become one.' That look was me in the '90s when we were squat-raving in London, [mixed with some modern influences] like Post Malone and Lil Peep. I hope people who are 19 today look at him and go, 'That guy is us.'"
What do you think about this first look at The Crow? Let us know in the comments section.
Soulmates Eric Draven (Skarsgård) and Shelly Webster (FKA twigs) are brutally murdered when the demons of her dark past catch up with them. 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.