A cursed project stuck in development hell for years, the remake/new adaptation of The Crow unsurprisingly completely crashed at the box office.
It’s been so long since it was announced, so many directors have been involved with the project, so many actors have dreamed of playing the title role that we no longer expected it. And yet, The Crow new generation was released on August 21, 2024 in France, with Bill Skarsgård in the skin of the tortured character of Eric and FKA Twigs in that of his sweetheart Shelly. All supervised by Rupert Sanders, already responsible for the remake of Ghost in the Shell.
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It’s difficult for such an Arlesian to compete with the big names on the market, and that wasn’t necessarily her goal. Benefiting from a budget far from the soft envelopes of summer blockbusters, The Crow did not need to hit the box office to satisfy its distributor Lionsgate. But its final score does not even live up to its modest ambitions. A look back at the journey of a film that failed to resurrect its saga.
We after seeing the film
The Crow : Dead Times
The Crow, the original, although it became cult over time, did not completely blow up the box office. It must be said that the choice to continue the film despite the death of Brandon Lee during filming (which notably involved the complex use of stunt doubles) would, according to Entertainment Weekly, have added 8 million to the budget to the initial 15 million. The adaptation released in 1994 of James O’Barr’s comics therefore cost around 23 million dollars, which made it a fairly luxurious B series especially since it was rated R.
In all, it grossed over $50 million, mostly at home, which put it above most horror films of the year, but would constitute a mixed record today. Except that in the mid-1990s, the video market was very, very lucrative. And with the DVD about to give it its golden age, it must have hit the jackpot. It’s sad, but Lee’s death and the aura he gained from the drama must have worked in his favor.
Forever immortal
If its objective was to beat it, even if only during its theatrical release, the remake failed miserably. In all, he amassed 23 million dollars… the equivalent of his model’s budget and less than half of his loot, even without taking into account inflation, which would put it over 100 million. A shower all the colder since this remake cost 50 million dollars, which makes it a so-called “mid-budget” production in Hollywood, but still a monumental failure.
Revealing detail: it was destroyed by Blink Twice, released the same week, which ended up amassing more than 46 million. Knowing that Zoë Kravitz’s film cost around $20 million and does not belong to any license…
