The Crow 1994 Full Movie
Charise Farag
The Crow is a 1994 American gothic superhero film[4][5][6] directed by Alex Proyas and written by David J. Schow and John Shirley, based on the 1989 comic book series by James O'Barr. It stars Brandon Lee, in his final film role, as Eric Draven, a rock musician who is resurrected from the dead to seek vengeance against the gang who murdered him and his fiance.
Lee was fatally wounded by a prop gun during filming. As he had finished most of his scenes, the film was completed through script rewrites, a stunt double and digital effects.[7] After Lee's death, Paramount Pictures opted out of distribution and the rights were acquired by Miramax Films. The film is dedicated to Lee and his fiance, Eliza Hutton.
On Devil's Night, in a crime-ravaged and decrepit Detroit, a young woman, Shelly Webster, is raped and seriously wounded while her rock musician fianc Eric Draven is shot and thrown to his death from the window of their loft apartment. Police Sergeant Daryl Albrecht accompanies Shelly to the hospital, but she eventually dies from her injuries. A narration states the legend of a crow that carries souls to the land of the dead, but if the person died in tragic circumstances the crow can resurrect their restless spirit to set things right.
The crow leads Eric to Tin Tin, whom Eric stabs to death. He next travels to the pawn shop where Tin Tin had pawned Shelly's engagement ring. Eric recovers the ring and blows up the shop, but spares the owner Gideon so he can alert Top Dollar's men that Eric is coming for them. Albrecht begins investigating the apparent vigilante disturbances while Eric finds Funboy taking drugs with Sarah's estranged drug addict mother, Darla. He gives Funboy a fatal overdose and purges the drugs from Darla's body, telling her that Sarah needs her.
Eric visits Albrecht and confirms his suspicions regarding the vigilante's identity. Albrecht tells Eric that he stayed with Shelly until she died, witnessing the thirty hours of suffering she experienced. Eric touches Albrecht, absorbing the pain Shelly felt. Later, Eric saves Sarah from being hit by a car, revealing to her that he has returned. Eric next targets T-Bird, killing him in an explosion. The following morning, Sarah and Darla reconcile and Sarah reunites with Eric at his apartment. Top Dollar holds a meeting with his associates to discuss his plans to burn the city to the ground on Devil's Night. Eric arrives for Skank but a gunfight erupts, ending with Eric throwing Skank from a window to his death. Top Dollar, his lover and half-sister Myca, and his right-hand man Grange escape. Myca correctly hypothesizes that the crow is the source of Eric's immortality.
Satisfied with his vengeance, Eric gifts Shelly's engagement ring to Sarah and returns to his grave. Grange abducts Sarah as she is walking home and takes her to an abandoned church with Myca and Top Dollar, who takes Shelly's ring. Eric is alerted to her plight by the crow and rushes to rescue her, but he is ambushed by Grange who wounds the crow, rendering Eric vulnerable. Albrecht arrives and kills Grange, while Myca attempts to take the crow for its immortality; it claws her eyes out, causing her to fall to her death from the bell tower. Top Dollar retreats to the church roof with Sarah, where he fights and badly wounds Eric. Eric transfers Shelly's pain into Top Dollar, causing him to stumble off the roof and be impaled on a gargoyle, killing him.
Sarah and a wounded Albrecht are recovered from the church while a pained Eric goes to Shelly's grave where her spirit arrives to comfort him and return his body to rest. Sometime later, Sarah visits the graves and the crow returns Shelly's ring to her.
James O'Barr wrote what would become The Crow as a means to cope with the unexpected death of his fiance, who was killed by a drunk driver.[9] The first meeting O'Barr had with a major studio was quickly dismissed after the studio's vision for the film was a musical with Michael Jackson as the lead.[10] Around the time of The Crow's publication, writer John Shirley pitched Angry Angel to Caliber Press, who turned it down due to similarities with The Crow. Shirley sought the comic out and decided to adapt it into a film.[11] O'Barr was receptive and agreed to workshop the film with Shirley and producer Jeff Most, turning down a significant offer from New Line Cinema in the process. O'Barr oversaw three different script treatments by Shirley and Most before directly collaborating on the first two drafts of the screenplay. Shirley penned the third and fourth draft by himself which awarded him screenplay credit by the Writers Guild of America. Most claimed to have written a "substantial proportion" of the script, but was denied credit due to a rule in the WGA which prohibited producers from receiving credit.[12] The addition of producer Edward Pressman gave The Crow further momentum, but Shirley would be fired during development after clashing with a development head at Pressman's studio.[13] Splatterpunk writer David J. Schow was brought in for rewrites.[5] From a suggestion by Most, Pressman primarily pursued music video and commercial directors to helm the film; Julien Temple being Most's top choice.[14] Australian filmmaker Alex Proyas was hired to direct the film.[11] Paramount Pictures picked up the distribution rights and slotted an August 1993 release date.[15]
River Phoenix and Christian Slater were early considerations for the role of Eric Draven.[16][17] Shirley and Most pushed for Slater while Pressman wanted River Phoenix.[18] Brandon Lee was suggested to play Draven, but O'Barr was unconvinced fearing he wouldn't be suited for the material. However, Lee won O'Barr over and was given the role shortly thereafter.[19] Lee dropped 20 pounds to portray Draven and worked closely with the crew to shape the film, co-choreographing his action sequences with Jeff Imada, performing most of his stunts, and removing a subplot due to its Asian stereotyping.[20][21][4] Rochelle Davis, Ernie Hudson, Michael Wincott, Bai Ling, Sofia Shinas, Michael Massee, David Patrick Kelly, Tony Todd, and Jon Polito rounded out the supporting cast.
On March 31, 1993, at EUE Screen Gems Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina, Lee was filming a scene where his character, Eric, is shot after witnessing the beating and rape of his fiance. Actor Michael Massee's character Funboy fires a .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson Model 629 revolver at Lee as he walks into the room.[23] A scene filmed two weeks before Lee's had called for the same gun to be shown in close-up. Revolvers often use dummy cartridges fitted with bullets, but no powder or primer, during close-ups as they look more realistic than blank rounds which have no bullet. Instead of purchasing commercial dummy cartridges, the film's prop crew, hampered by time and money constraints, created their own by pulling the bullets from live rounds, dumping the powder charge but not the primer, then reinserting the bullets. Witnesses reported that two weeks before Lee's death they saw an unsupervised actor pulling the trigger on the gun while it was loaded with the powderless but primed round. Having not removed the primer, the primer could detonate with enough energy to launch a bullet and lodge it in the barrel.[24][25]
After Lee's death, the producers were faced with the decision of whether or not to continue with the film. Lee had completed most of his scenes for the film and was scheduled to shoot for only three more days.[2] The rest of the cast and crew, except for Ernie Hudson, whose brother-in-law had just died, stayed in Wilmington. Paramount Pictures, which was initially interested in distributing The Crow theatrically (originally a direct-to-video feature), opted out of involvement due to delays in filming and some controversy over the violent content being inappropriate given Lee's death. However, Miramax picked it up with the intention of releasing it in theatres and injected a further $8 million to complete the production, taking its budget to approximately $23 million.[2] The cast and crew then took a break for script rewrites of the flashback scenes that had yet to be completed.[24] The script was rewritten by Walon Green, Terry Hayes, Ren Balcer, and Michael S. Chernuchin, adding narration and new scenes.[28][29] Lee's stunt double Chad Stahelski was used as a stand-in and digital face replacement was used to superimpose Lee's face onto the head of the double. The beginning of the movie, which had not been finished, was rewritten, and the apartment scene remade using computer graphics from an earlier scene of Lee.[30]
A character from the original comic book called Skull Cowboy was originally planned to be part of the adaptation and even had scenes filmed. He acted as a guide for Eric Draven between the worlds of the dead and the living. He was set to be played by Michael Berryman, but the role was cut from the film due to Lee's death.[31]
The film opened at number one in the United States in 1,573 theaters with $11,774,332 and averaging $7,485 per theater, making it Miramax's biggest ever opening.[33][34] Some industry sources believed that Miramax overstated the weekend gross by as much as $1 million.[35] The film ultimately grossed $50,693,129 in the United States and Canada, and $43 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $93.7 million against its budget of $23 million.[36][3] It ranked at number 24 for all films released in the US in 1994, the 24th highest-grossing film worldwide for 1994 and number 10 for R-rated films released that year.[37][3]
In Europe, the film grossed 1,245,403 in the United Kingdom (where it was 18-rated),[38] and sold 4,604,115 tickets in France, Germany, Italy and Spain.[39][40] In Seoul, South Korea, it sold 83,126 tickets.[41]
The Crow has an approval rating of 86% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 69 reviews and an average rating of 7.2/10. The critical consensus states: "Filled with style and dark, lurid energy, The Crow is an action-packed visual feast that also has a soul in the performance of the late Brandon Lee."[8] The film also has a score of 71 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[42]
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