Monday, January 23, 2012

The Lawsuit Settled; Crow Redux Can Fly Again

The Weinstein Company and Relativity Media have reached an out of court settlement regarding the lawsuit that has stalled the long-struggling remake of The Crow says Variety

In a joint statement from the two companies: "The parties will continue to work on the film together as planned. In addition, Relativity Media has dismissed all of its claims against The Weinstein Company for any wrongdoing regarding the release and distribution of Nine, and The Weinstein Company has dismissed all of its claims against Relativity Media."

The Weinstein Company had filed an injunction last spring regarding Relativity's remake of the original 1994 film and specifically the distribution rights to the project. Relativity followed with a claim that TWC "intentionally masked its financial problems in order to induce Relativity to finance musical Nine."

Legal woes now over yes, but the redux has had other problems to overcome like casting and finding someone to call action

Director Stephen Norrington was slated to helm the reboot at first from a script by Nick Cave At that point Mark Wahlberg was rumoured to be interested in taking the lead role. Both Norrington and Cave left, replaced by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and Alex Tse respectively

Actor Bradley Cooper actually signed on to play the title character. Then Cooper left due to scheduling conflicts with the now delayed "Paradise Lost" and just completed The Silver Linings Playbook

With Fresnadillo now gone as well, a new director is needed and at last report F. Javier Gutierrez ("Before the Fall") was said to be a potential replacement

James O'Barr's Gothic comic book series followed musician Eric Draven who is murdered trying to rescue his girlfriend from thugs, and returns from the dead one year later to exact vengeance.


Like the Alex Proyas-directed adaptation which became more known for the on set death of its star Brandon Lee , the story follows a rock musician who is murdered while trying to save his fiancee from thugs. He is resurrected by supernatural forces and seeks revenge. That film spawned three sequels, The Crow: City of Angels, The Crow: Salvation, and The Crow: Wicked Prayer, as well as a short-lived TV series The Crow: Stairway to Heaven starring Mark Dacascos.

As for the lead casting Wahlberg was linked a 2nd time but had 2 Guns and Broken City in his sights; Channing Tatum (who seems all wrong for the role IMHO) was also mentioned at one point recently

Ed Pressman, Jeff Most, Ryan Kavanaugh, Enrique López Lavigne and Belén Atienza will produce but there's no word yet on any timetable.

No comments: