How much do I love Alex Proyas's 1994 goth cult classic The Crow? Put it this way: The theme of the movie meant enough to me that not long after its release I had the image of the crow, wings spread, tattooed across the lower part of my stomach.
While I never believed that a sequel to the film that killed Brandon Lee should've been completely out of the question, I don't think anyone can argue that the series of pathetic offspring spawned by The Crow hasn't at any point come close to matching the power and beauty of the original (and not simply because of the real-life tragedy attached to it).
This tradition of literally adding insult to injury, though, apparently isn't stopping Blade director Stephen Norrington from making plans to reboot the Crow franchise.
As in remake the original.
While I liked what Norrington did with Blade -- particularly the casting of Stephen Dorff as an appropriately cool and malevolent Deacon Frost -- the disaster that was his big budget follow-up, 2003's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, is so legendary that neither the film's director nor its star, Sean Connery, has worked since. Needless to say, what should be an omen on par with the fictional crow itself isn't enough to stop Relativity Media from seeing the potential cash to be made trading on the lasting popularity of the original 1994 movie.
Bottom line, though: It's a terrible idea.
Lee's death transformed what would have otherwise been an artsy revenge fantasy into something more powerful -- imbuing it with an ironic emotional impact it otherwise wouldn't have had. To attempt to, pardon the pun, resurrect it just feels wrong. It reeks of the worst kind of cynical exploitation.
Brandon Lee died making The Crow.
At the very least, let the film be forever equated with his memory. Let The Crow rest in peace.
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