Yet another “The Crow remake is in trouble” story for you, as the tortured production looks like its steering into yet another problem.
The film was closer than it’s ever been to getting made with The Hallow director Corin Hardy at the helm and Andrea Riseborough rumoured to be playing the villain Top Dollar. Admittedly, Jack Huston had dropped out due to scheduling conflicts and they needed to find another Crow, but pre-production had begun at Pinewood when studio Relativity went bankrupt and production was halted.
Now, producer Edward R Pressman is throwing the brakes back on. According to The Wrap, Pressman “filed an objection to the inclusion of the project among the studio’s assets as it prepares for a sale.”
The issue seems to be that Pressman doesn’t believe that the interested party has the finances to actually get The Crow made. He stated that the company “hasn’t demonstrated ‘adequate assurance of future performance’ and he’s concerned that Relativity’s new owner won’t immediately have the resources to finance the film and release it on ‘no less than 1,000 screens’ in North America, which requires an investment of ‘no less than $10 million to $12 million.'”
Apparently Relativity has turned down several bids from interested parties as The Crow is one of their most highly valued properties, and Pressman is determined that whoever picks up the film be able to put up the required money and guarantee a wide theatrical release.
With the delays dragging on and on, Pressman said that he is “in danger of losing the services of the director of the picture … who is widely regarded as a key creative element. Thus, the production of the picture is imploding even as the time to make the picture is running out under the Crow contract.”
The site notes that Pressman will get the rights to The Crow back in 18 months if production does not begin.
This is the latest chapter in an ever-lengthening, tortured tale for The Crow remake. If Hardy goes, will it be back to square one? He seems like a good fit for the film, and we were fans of his horror The Hallow. It’s hard not to sympathise with Pressman’s concerns. Imagine if, after all of this, we ended up with another straight-to-DVD Crow movie? We’ve had plenty of those already and, frankly, they’re not that great. Remember Wicked Prayer? No?
You can buy The Crow on Blu-ray for £6.68 at Amazon.co.uk. Keep up with the latest genre news with the new issue of SciFiNow.
