The original’s director has been ‘Crow’-ing about bad reviews of the remake
It’s official: Alex Proyas’s version of The Crow is the superior one. By a lot.
From the moment it was announced that a new version of The Crow was in production, people were suspicious, and it turned out they were right to be. The Crow 2024, starring Bill Skarsgård and FKA Twigs, has been absolutely mauled by critics. And you’d be hard pressed to find a fan of the original with a nice thing to say about the remake.
You see, the original version of The Crow was the last work of Brandon Lee. He was tragically killed on set when a fragment of a blank round hit him while filming a scene with a gun, and this naturally had a huge effect on the cast and crew of the movie. His death haunts the film industry to this day, and many people considered that remaking The Crow was outright disrespectful to Lee’s memory. And director Alex Proyas was one of the loudest voices against the new movie.
“I really don’t get any joy from seeing negativity about any fellow filmmakers work,” he wrote in March in a now-locked Facebook post. “And I’m certain the cast and crew really had all good intentions, as we all do on any film. So it pains me to say any more on this topic, but I think the fans’ response speaks volumes. [The Crow] is not just a movie. Brandon Lee died making it, and it was finished as a testament to his lost brilliance and tragic loss. It is his legacy. That’s how it should remain.”
The words “cash-grab” were looming over that post, but now Proyas has come right out and said them. Absolutely no-one wanted a Crow remake—the trailer was hit with multiple dislikes on YouTube as soon as it came out—but it happened anyway, because it was a well-known IP.
“I thought the remake was a cynical cash-grab. Not much cash to grab it seems,” Proyas wrote on Facebook after it became clear the movie was a box-office bomb. He’s also been sharing negative reviews of the movie and generally making it clear that he’s enjoying its abject failure.
So far the $50 million film has grossed a mere $4.6 million across the United States and Canada, making it a huge box office bomb. And there’s no indication that it’ll pick up a cult following like the 1994 original did—quite the opposite, in fact. It’s certain to make a good few “worst of 2024” lists at the end of the year.
So Proyas is allowed a little schadenfreude and smugness, and hopefully the whole Crow debacle will make producers think twice before rebooting a franchise with so much tragic history attached.
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