The Crow

A new film with a new cast is finally in the works.

Jason Momoa will no longer star in the update of the beloved ’90s cult superhero film

If you had asked me about my five-year plan back in 2012, it definitely would not have included “still writing about The Crow reboot” — but here we are, in 2017, and I am still writing about this wacky movie, which was all but dead and buried when Relativity Media declared bankruptcy and sent several developing projects into the Hollywood ether. Then someone at Sony — probably the sentient pair of Bad Idea Jeans that keeps green-lighting ill-advised Spider-Man spinoffs and stealth Venom prequels — read an article about how the ’90s are cool again and decided to resurrect this Crow reboot once and for all.

One of my favorite things to do with troubled film productions is dig back into the ScreenCrush archives and see how long we’ve been talking about the film. If you check out our archive for The Crow, for example, you can scroll back through the Jason Momoa rumors, back through the official casting announcements of Jack Huston and Luke Evans, and end up somewhere in the middle of a strange James McAvoy situation circa 2013. It’s been a long road for everyone’s favorite undead superhero  —  sorry, Blade —  but at least executive producer F. Javier Gutiérrez has remained faithful, even as cast members and rumored directors have not.

It’s probably fair to assume that if a movie ever made a little bit of money at the box office, someone somewhere is hard at work on a reboot, prequel, sequel, or ‘reimagining’ of the franchise. Back in 2015, for example, we were inundated with rumors that The Crow was getting a reboot, first with Jack Huston playing the undead spirit of vengeance and then Justice League star Jason Momoa in the role. For a lot of movies, this is where the rumors dry up, but for The Crow Reborn, the headaches had just begun. Now Relativity Media has sold the rights to their tortured production and a whole new round of rumors and speculation can begin.

Like the film’s eponymous hero, The Crow reboot refuses to die. After suffering a series of setbacks — including director and casting changes and a highly-publicized studio bankruptcy — Relativity Media has reportedly renewed their commitment to the long-developing remake of the ’90s cult classic, with Jason Momoa now in talks to play the lead role.

Of all the films currently in development, the one that has had perhaps the most surprisingly difficult time pulling everything together is The Crow. Following a few director and casting changes, the long-developing remake suffered a huge stumble with the collapse of Relativity Media, and it didn’t seem like it would move forward anytime soon — if ever. But good news for those who are interested in The Crow remake: it’s still very much happening.

Earlier this week we learned that Relativity Media declared bankruptcy, as the studio reportedly owes on several past projects and is unable to pay up. That puts the future of many of their projects — completed and not — in question, including the repeatedly delayed Jane Got a Gun, as well as the reboot of The Crow. Both movies appear to be cursed.

Over the last several years, Relativity Media has produced and released some of Hollywood’s more adventurous genre films, including Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire, the Bradley Cooper brain-drug thriller Limitless, and the music melodrama Beyond the Lights. But they’ve yet to make an out-and-out blockbuster; per Box Office Mojo none of their 34 releases have ever broken $100 million in domestic grosses (2011’s Immortals came closest, with $83.5 million in the U.S.) and some of their flops have been extreme, like Machine Gun Preacher with Gerard Butler, which cost a reported $30 million and made less than $1 million domestically. Amidst mounting disappointments (and millions of dollars in unpaid loans) Relativity filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier today, and will sell its film and television operations at auction.

The upcoming reboot/remake/whatever of The Crow has had a pretty hard time getting off the ground. Luke Evans was originally supposed to star in the new version, set to be directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later), but both Evans and Fresnadillo exited the project. The reigns were then handed to director Corin Hardy, with Boardwalk Empire star Jack Huston attached to star. But now Huston has also departed the project, leaving the role of the goth hero vacant once again.