The final frame of “The Crow” reads: “For Brandon and Eliza.” Back before the opening of “The Crow” in 1994 life imitated art yet again as when just as filming was wrapping up, Brandon Lee was set to marry his fiancé Eliza Hutton a week after wrapping production much like Eric was set to marry Shelly a day before Halloween before tragedy took its toll Brandon was buried next to his father in a ceremony where reports indicate he was buried in his wedding tux. During the memorial service his future wife Eliza wore her wedding dress, never having children with him.
And not surprisingly, the media jumped on this horrific accident disgustingly describing his death as yet another victim of the “Curse of the Dragon.” In actuality it was the accident on the set of “The Crow” that led to his death, and not a ridiculous curse used to sell books and air time on primetime news with talking heads discussing the cursed Lee bloodline. Unfortunate human error has no place when it comes to making profit off of human suffering. The footage that showed Lee being shot was never used and promptly burned and Hutton has insisted that no one will ever see it again, thankfully.
Lee’s death had a big effect on everyone altering the careers of a few of his co-stars, including Rochelle Davis who, as many have reported, quit acting for good after Lee’s death. She has since lived out of the spotlight only to re-emerge on occasion for interviews and even showed up briefly during the A&E Biography of Brandon. But you can find her on MySpace where she opens her life for the fans of the film and the franchise even hosting a slew of photos of Brandon on her photo album minus any actual captions. Davis of course has garnered her own legion of followers who subscribe to her page religiously. After scouring the net I learned that though Davis does host a page, she is not very prone to discussing the tragedy, which is perfectly understandable since she only returned to the set once to act off of Lee’s body double in the scene where she talks to Eric in the abandoned loft. Davis has yet to act in anything else.
The character of Sarah in “The Crow” later appeared in the sequel but this time played by Mia Kirshner, who bear a striking resemblance to Davis. Hutton was inspired by Lee’s death to form a movement to increase the security when dealing with firearms on movie sets. After Lee’s death the studio shelved the film and insisted on refusing to screen it, but inevitably the work spoke for itself and what couldn’t be done with Lee was filled in with body doubles, shadows, face molds, snippets of the actor’s voice, and some rather incredible computer animation that helped show Lee as Draven stumbling in to his apartment shivering from the cold.
What is done without Lee is quite brilliant as the scenes that show only mild resemblances to Brandon help create an aura of mystery around Eric and even helps increase the tension in the scene where Eric becomes the Crow’s servant, face paint and all. Lee died before he could finish filming the most of the death scenes, so Proyas made due with what little he had and re-wrote a lot of the script to work around Lee’s death, which would help explain why most of the movie isn’t very similar to O’Barr’s graphic novel. But for what it’s worth, the movie is still considered an amazing movie, and it’s still one of my favorites of all time.
Grossing fifty million dollars domestically and ranking at number one in the box office, it was only obvious the film, with its mystique and golden concept, was going to garner a sequel or two. Sadly, it would be without Lee who, as rumors claim, was in talks to reprise his role as Eric for two more movies. Rumors indicate that Lee also planned on a sequel for “Rapid Fire” and was also in the lead to play Johnny Cage in the “Mortal Kombat” movie. What a damn shame. Two years later Dimension released “The Crow: City of Angels,” a sequel that took on different characters in Los Angeles painted to look like the city from the original. With direction by Tim Pope and writing by David S. Goyer, “City of Angels” went on to infamy. Let’s be fair here, okay?
I’ll be the first to admit that the sequels are not good. I mean they’re lackluster and often times quite awful to sit through. They get progressively worse as they go on and why? Because rather than trying to stray from the material and invent a new mold, the people behind the sequels just decided to mimic the original film’s formula and failed big time. But again, let’s be fair. Did anyone really think they could top the original? No one had any chance of accomplishing the work of Alex Proyas and Brandon Lee, no one had any chance of invoking a visceral emotional powerful film that the original succeeded in being, so there simply was no hope that we’d see parts two, three, and four and love them as much as the original.
Quite simply, so much was poured in to the first outing that there was really nowhere to go but down with the sequels. Which would not have been the case had they tried something different with perhaps a female protagonist or someone of a different race in the lead role. Maybe both. Try out different settings and landscapes, different time periods, go for a whole new concept involving the crow, what would happen if the crow brought back a serial killer or someone truly evil?
That’s never explored in the sequels in spite of the graphic novels from Kitchen Sink stretching the concept James O’Barr spread out in his first book because the studios seemed hesitant not to test the waters that were mastered with Lee and Proyas. Which is sad, because the Crow storyline is open to so many possibilities for creative minds. As time went on the sequels became worse and so did the release dates going from a highly publicized theatrical release of the original to a fourth sequel that only made it as far as a premiere on the Science Fiction Channel here in America. We went from Brandon Lee and Ernie Hudson to Tara Reid and Eddie Furlong.
“The Crow: City of Angels” is not without its fan base though as many readers of O’Barr’s original graphic novels have insisted it’s a very misunderstood movie and that it deserves more acclaim and should be accepted on its own terms. Which is not surprising since Dimension completely chopped up the movie in post-production taking a narrative about redemption and spirituality and turning it in to a jumbled moody messy story that was just dull from minute one. No one stood a chance, especially with the studios hesitation to let it be its own entity.