Watch FKA twigs in the first trailer for ‘The Crow’
The reboot, which also stars Bill Skarsgard, will come out this summer.
By Kory Grow
“I KILLED YOU,” says a man. “Yeah, you did,” says the Crow, played by Bill Skarsgård, as he cocks a gun at the man’s head in the trailer for the upcoming remake of the phantasmagoric revenge movie from 1994.
A trailer for The Crow, due out this summer, shows Skarsgård in the role of Eric Draven, a restless spirit hellbent (literally) on avenging his own death, as well as that of his lover, Shelley Webster, played by FKA twigs.
“When someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead,” a voice explains in one scene, as Draven walks through a crow-filled abandoned warehouse. “But sometimes something so bad happens that the soul cannot rest until you put the wrong things right.”
The film, which also stars Danny Huston, will be a fresh adaptation of James O’Barr’s comic-book character. The special effects are slicker than the original movie’s, and the trailer suggests this version will be even gorier with close-ups of bad guys’ brains splattering all over the floor when Draven shoots them, hunting down each person who was responsible for his and Webster’s deaths.
By the end of the trailer, the character has applied full marionette corpsepaint to his face and donned a black trench coat, marching gun in hand, towards his foes. And, since he’s dead, he seems to be able to withstand any brutal assaults, even pulling a katana blade from his own stomach.
Filmmaker Rupert Sanders (Snow White and the Huntsman) directed the picture based on a screenplay by Zach Baylin (King Richard, Creed III) and William Schneider.
“The Crow is the original anti-superhero,” Sanders said in a statement. “His story is about tragic loss, about dealing with the pain of everything that comes with losing someone you love, something that all of us have or will encounter at some point in our lives. … Our version goes back to that graphic novel by James O’Barr, who I had the honour of meeting shortly before production, and explores the love story as the primary drive for our film.”
“What drew me to [the production] was what Rupert Sanders wanted to do with it,” Skarsgård said. “He wanted to completely reimagine the story and the character and tailor it towards a modern audience. … I felt a responsibility to Eric’s story and endeavoured to stay true to the spirit of the source material.”
The original Crow movie, which starred Bruce Lee’s son Brandon, was a sleeper hit when it came out in the spring of 1994, but it quickly became a cult sensation thanks to its gothic look and a great soundtrack with songs by Nine Inch Nails, The Cure and Stone Temple Pilots. Lee tragically died on set during the making the film. The production’s prop department had cut corners, filming one scene with a bullet that was fixed so it would be stuck in the gun’s barrel, and then firing a blank that forced the bullet out of the gun, hitting Lee in the stomach, killing him. With rewrites and Lee’s stunt man acting as Draven – with Lee’s face digitally added to his – producers finished the film.
The movie was enough a success commercially to inspire three sequels, and now, a reboot.