The Crow, the 1994 movie that became a cult classic after Brandon Lee’s death while shooting, is coming back with Bill Skarsgård in the lead role this time, and we’ve got first-look images to prove it.
A series reboot has long been in the works since the franchise went dormant after 2005’s The Crow: Wicked Prayer, a straight-to-video mess that only confirmed that the franchise has really been dead since the original film landed in 1994. Still, given the success of comic book films since the last Crow film landed, Hollywood has been struggling for nearly 20 years to get this one back on track, but they finally have.
The film, billed as a “modern reimagining of the original graphic novel by James O’Barr,” sees Skarsgård take on the role of everyone’s favorite white-faced, mopey, revenge-fueled anti-hero Crow as he sacrifices his soul to save the woman he loves. As the images show, Crow’s look has been updated a bit from the ’90s goth era to something that looks more like a mix between Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix’s Jokers, only with way more abs.
In other images, we see Skarsgård with co-star FKA Twigs, who plays Eric Draven/The Crow’s soulmate, Shelly Webster. It’s because of her brutal death that he returns to the world of the living and the dead as The Crow and starts getting revenge on those who murdered them both. These images look much more normal and are definitely from parts of the film that are either flashbacks or before the whole brutal murder thing. Joining Skarsgård and FKA Twigs is Danny Huston.
Rebooting The Crow is a bit of a risky venture, even with the magic of a shirtless Skarsgård. Not only has the film been delayed so long that it’s now coming out when everyone is tired of superhero movies, but it’s a franchise that is so incredibly ’90s that it almost hurts. The goth, angst, emo scene practically arose alongside the original film, and while these images definitely seem to be bringing the whole black leather, white face paint stuff back, it’s hard to imagine the look really speaking to anyone today.
The Crow will be released in theaters on June 7.
