Every single would-be franchise in the business has cast at least one longing gaze in the direction of Kevin Feige’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it might be for the best if The Crow reboot accomplished the difficulties of managing to walk before even contemplating the idea of bursting into a full-blown sprint.
After all, Bill Skarsgård’s assimilation of the title role brought to equal parts tragic and iconic life by the late Brandon Lee has only just escaped 15 years in development hell, during which time an eye-watering volume of writers, directors, and stars have come and gone at various points.
The fact it’s even been made in the first place is reason enough to triumph, but as producer Sam Pressman ominously intoned in an interview with Deadline, the dreaded word “universe” has already been bandied around.
“The Crow has been a very central and integral part of our company and I’m really proud of the progress and the work that has been done. I think the movie is just going to blow people away. Our partners want to approach it in a very 360 way, whether it be video games, an animated series or a universe, but it’s got this cosmic legacy that can expand beyond a singular story.
We’re finally at a point where we can really explore those other avenues because it’s such a unique property in that it is not a studio film, it’s not a Marvel film – it’s kind of an anti-Marvel film. I have the highest hopes for that and I really love what Molly Hassell has done in pushing it up the hill and Rupert Sanders is such a visionary.”
Does anybody really need an entire multimedia Crow universe in their life? Sure, there might be a few, but let’s just get the movie out of the way first before so much as a sequel crosses anybody’s lips given the journey the do-over has endured so far.