Jason Momoa The Crow

Jason Momoa earned raves for his depiction of Aquaman in ‘Justice League’ and will headline a solo film this winter, but it looks like he was fated to only portray one comic book character.  The burly actor was attached to star in a remake of ‘The Crow’ for Sony, but he and director Corin Hardy have announced that they were walking away from this project.  Filming was due to begin within the next five weeks in Budapest but there were apparently creative and financial differences between these two talents and financier Samuel Hadida and his production company Davis Films.  The film was in “full pre-production.”

What’s particularly… weird (for lack of a better word) is that it doesn’t appear that Sony actually even had the rights to make a ‘Crow’ movie.  In September, Sony announced that they were making this reboot and even announced a release date, October 11, 2019.  But the official deal was never actually finalized and this is believed to be the reason why Momoa and Hardy exited the project.

This is the second time Hardy has been attached to direct a ‘Crow’ movie.  He signed on in 2014 when Relativity Media had the rights, but he exited the project over… um… creative and financial differences.  (Déjà vu.)  After Relativity Media declared bankruptcy, Hadida supposedly claimed the rights to ‘The Crow’, but… I guess he didn’t really.

‘The Crow’ originated in an indie comic by James O’Barr.  It was adapted into a film in 1994, falling squarely between the death of the first ‘Batman’ movie franchise and the boom in comic book movies in the late nineties.  ‘The Crow’ was expected to be the breakout film for star Brandon Lee (son of Bruce Lee), but tragically, he died while filming when a stunt went wrong.  Even so, the film was completed and was a box office hit, leading to three additional movies– ‘The Crow: City of Angels’ with  Vincent Pérez playing a new version of The Crow, ‘The Crow: Salvation’ starring Eric Mabius and ‘The Crow: Wicked Prayer’ starring Edward Furlong.  There was also a TV series, ‘The Crow: Stairway To Heaven’ that launched in 1998 and featured Mark Decascos playing Eric Draven, the same version of the character that Brandon Lee had played.  In the late ’90s, rocker and horror fan Rob Zombie announced plans to direct a futuristic ‘Crow’ movie but it never materialized.

Hardy directed the ‘Conjuring’ spinoff ‘The Nun’ which opens on September 7, 2018.  Momoa’s solo ‘Aquaman’ movie will be released on December 21, 2018.

Are you interested in a ‘Crow’ reboot?  Are you disappointed that this film has hit another major hurdle?

Source: Deadline