BSP 2014 Advent Calendar: Day 11

Welcome to Day 11 of Bam Smack Pow’s 2014 Advent Calendar! Only fourteen more days left until Christmas, and that means fourteen more superhero films will be mined for trivia. For Day 11, we give you …

The Crow (1994)

This film is definitely bittersweet for me, and I still hold it pretty close to my heart. Slated to be his breakthrough role, Brandon Lee was accidentally and tragically killed during filming. Because of this extremely sad event, many have said that the darkness of The Crow has been enhanced in the public’s consciousness. After its release, the film garnered positive reviews for its visual style and fast-paced action. Even till this day, fans of the movie still think about what Brandon Lee could’ve become had he not died at such a young age.

The Crow was directed by Alex Proyas, written by David J. Schow and John Shirley, and starred Brandon Lee as Eric Draven / The Crow, Michael Wincott as Top Dollar, Ernie Hudson as Sgt. Abrecht, Rochelle Davis as Sarah, Bai Ling as Myca, David Patrick Kelly as T-Bird, Angel David as Skank, Jon Polito as Gideon, Tony Todd as Grange, Sofia Shinas as Shelly Webster, Michael Massee as Funboy, Laurence Mason as Tin-Tin, Anna Levine as Darla, Bill Raymond as Mickey, and Marco Rodriguez as Torres.

Trivia

Eric Mabius auditioned for the role, but was turned down. He would later play Alex Corvis / The Crow in The Crow: Salvation (2000).
When The Crow went to film, many things were changed from the comic book.
- James O’Barr’s Comic Book
  - Eric is a mechanic and no last name is ever mentioned.
  - Top Dollar was a member of T-Bird’s gang.
  - Myca and George weren’t present.
  - The crow wasn’t a source of supernatural power.
  - Skank did not participate in the murders of Eric and Shelly. A character named Tom-Tom was involved.
  - The murders are caused by T-Bird’s gang being high on drugs and running into Eric and Shelly when their car breaks down.
  - Eric lasts thirty hours in a coma in intensive care before he dies. It’s implied that in those thirty hours, he fantasized about becoming the Crow and exacting revenge. The event of him actually becoming the Crow never happened.
  - Sarah doesn’t meet Eric until after Eric’s death.
- Film
  - Eric is a musician and his last name is Draven.
  - Top Dollar is the leader of a criminal organization.
  - Myca and George are present.
  - The crow is a source of supernatural power that, when injured, will also weaken Eric.
  - Skank participated in the murders of Eric and Shelley.
  - Eric and Shelley were murdered because the gang was celebrating Devil’s Night with a crime spree.
  - Shelly is the one that’s beaten into a coma.
  - Sarah is cared for by Eric and Shelley. Sarah’s mother, Darla, is a drug addict who ignores her for long stints.
When James O’Barr was creating the comic book, he listened to Joy Division and The Cure. He was ecstatic when The Cure agreed to write an original song, Burn, for the movie.
Studio executives originally planned the film to be a musical starring Michael Jackson. When James O’Barr was presented with this idea, he laughed out loud, but discovered that they were quite serious.
In the scene where Eric is being shot on a large conference table, he rolls on his back and kicks a shooter out a window, and then jumps back on his feet. This is the same move his father, Bruce Lee, performed in Enter the Dragon (1973), which was coincidentally Bruce’s last film before he died.
Originally, James O’Barr didn’t want Brandon Lee to be cast in the role of Eric. He wanted Johnny Depp as Eric Draven. O’Barr had only seen one Brandon Lee film and that was Showdown in Little Tokyo. He was afraid that Lee would make The Crow into a martial arts movie. After meeting Lee in full make-up and hearing him deliver his lines, O’Barr was convinced that Lee was perfect for the part.
Screenwriter David J. Schow makes a cameo as one of the shooters in the boardroom scene.
When Eric Draven breaks into Gideon’s pawn shop he says, “Suddenly, I heard a tapping …” This is a misquoted line from Edgar Allen Poe’s famous poem The Raven, which is actually “… suddenly there came a tapping …”
Alex Proyas wanted to shoot the movie in black-and-white with the flashback scenes in color. The studio was against that idea, so Proyas filmed the movie in a monochromatic color theme with a mix of red and grey.
Alex Proyas stated that Brandon Lee disliked the way the make-up department applied his make-up. The two then agreed that Lee would apply his own make-up before going to bed each night. When he woke up the next day, the make-up would look naturally worn out.
One of the crows named Magic was used in all the subsequent Crow films.
Brandon Lee’s death was actually preventable had the actual arms master not left the set for the day. An initial scene called for dummy cartridges that contained brass caps, but no gun powder. After the shoot, the props master dry-fired the gun to get the cock off, but the cap got lodged into the barrel of the gun. In the next scene, they wanted a much louder and dramatic firing sound, so they loaded the gun with bullets that had triple the gunpowder and a cardboard cap. Brandon’s character Eric was to walk into the scene carrying a bag of groceries with an explosive blood pack. As Michael Masse’s character Funboy fired the gun, the full power of the gunpowder expelled the lodged cap as if it was a real bullet. The projectile shot through the bag of groceries, instantly killing Brandon. The footage was later developed for use as evidence for the investigation into his death. Afterwards, a lawsuit settlement had the footage destroyed.
Paramount Pictures was the original financier of the film. But when Brandon Lee died and production was indefinitely shut down, the studio abandoned the project due to the film being incomplete. Entertainment Media Investment Corporation was created for the purposes of purchasing the film and completing it. They used, at the time, revolutionary CGI techniques and body doubles to complete the movie.
In the original script, Michael Masse’s character, Funboy, was not suppose to shoot Brandon’s character, Eric. It was changed at the last minute by Alex Proyas.
Linda Lee Caldwell, widow of Bruce Lee and mother of Brandon Lee, filed a negligence suit against the producer Edward R. Pressman, actor Michael Masse, and twelve other defendant for Brandon’s death. She eventually settled out of court for $3 million.
Although Michael Masse was not to blame for Brandon Lee’s death, he stopped acting for a year due to his traumatic experience. He has never seen the film.
Throughout the years, many have recalled eerie omens and predictions for Brandon Lee’s death:
- On the first day of shooting, a carpenter suffered severe burns.
- Brandon cut himself on breakaway glass when filming the scene involving Gideon’s pawn shop. It’s almost impossible for anyone to be cut by breakaway glass. Jon Polito, who plays Gideon, told Brandon that he feared Brandon would die on a set accident like Vic Morrow — an actor who died during the filming of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983).
- A grip truck caught fire.
- A disgruntled sculptor rammed his car through the studio’s plaster shop.
- A crew member accidentally pierced his hand clean through with a screwdriver.
- In Bruce Lee’s biography, Bruce, after coming out of a coma, predicted Brandon’s death years before Brandon even considered acting.
These were the scenes that were added after Brandon Lee’s death:
- When Eric is seen entering his apartment post-death, the scene was created by compositing his walk through the rain soaked alley into the doorway. Rain drops were added to the door frame so that the water on Brandon’s back didn’t look awkward.
- When Eric is seen falling out of a window, the scene was created by digitally compositing Brandon’s face onto a body-double.
- When Eric puts on his Crow make-up while looking at a shattered mirror, the reflection is Brandon’s face digitally altered to fit the shattered pieces of mirror.
- When Eric walks towards the window with a crow on his shoulder, the scene was created by compositing Brandon’s face onto a body-double.
- When Sarah visits the apartment, the scene was created with just a double, as we never see his face.

Make sure to come back each day because we still have fourteen more days worth of superhero film trivia for you!

Check Out Previous Days

A special thanks to Eric Dufresne for his amazing geometric superhero art that’s being used as the background for the advent calendar.

Home/Movies