The Crow's Original Sequel Plans Would Have Changed The Franchise Completely

Alex Proyas' 1994 Goth catnip movie "The Crow" may serve as one of the definitive films of the 1990s. Based on the 1989 comic books by James O'Barr, "The Crow" is about a young musician named Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) who is beaten to death, along with his girlfriend. A mystical crow, however, flies into the afterlife and retrieves Eric's soul. Now undead, Eric sets out on a mission to get revenge on his killers. He paints his face like a Goth clown, dresses in a leather Edward Scissorhands outfit, and becomes a bloodthirsty vigilante. "The Crow" is deeply beloved by a certain contingent of Gen-Xers, and its soundtrack is a banger. 

Since then, however, "The Crow" has been stretched every which way. Over the years there have been three sequels, a TV series, and an utterly terrible reboot in 2024 – and those are just the ones that actually got made. There has also been a litany of unmade "Crow" movies. Indeed, scads of actors/directors/writers have been variously attached to new "Crows" for the better part of 30 years.

The first sequel that actually did get made was a near-future, MTV-inflected rehash of the original called "The Crow: City of Angels." It starred Vincent Pérez and Mia Kirshner. Iggy Pop was in it. It wasn't very good, though, and kind of bombed at the box office. The bloom was off the bouquet of black roses. 

Prior to "City of Angels," though, the trend of unmade "Crow" sequels began almost immediately. Writer David S. Goyer said in a 1996 issue of Sci-Fi Entertainment Magazine that, in 1995, he was already working on two ideas for "Crow" sequels that never saw the light of day. One of them took place in 1880s London.

1994's "The Crow" is indelibly marked by the accidental on-set killing of its star, Brandon Lee. A prop gun misfired during an action sequence, taking his life. Goyer felt that digging into a sequel was a mite ghoulish, since Lee would necessarily need to be replaced. But he also noted that "The Crow" was still a fascinating story, and that there were still stories to tell. Goyer's eventual idea was simple enough, and was used, at least in part, for "City of Angels." 

"I started thinking, 'What if we told the story of Sarah as an adult?' That's what made me go for it." 

Sarah was the young narrator in "The Crow," and was played by actress Rochelle Davis. In "City of Angels," set 15 years later, Sarah is a tattoo artist who encounters a second man who has been resurrected by a magical bird. While Goyer did get to write "City of Angels" with an adult Sarah, he admitted that "the movie that we made isn't precisely the movie that I wanted to make at the beginning." Indeed, he had two ideas. In one, Sarah was the Crow.

"I wanted to have a female Crow in the second film, and I wanted it to be Sarah — I thought that would be a most interesting kind of twist, to have a female Crow. And no one could make any comparisons to Brandon Lee if the character was female." 

Goyer's other idea was not to flash forward, but back to the past. He had an idea that the Crow would feel at home in the streets London in 1888: 

"My second idea was to do a 'Gaslight Crow," a movie that took place in Victorian England, where I was going to pit the Victorian Crow up against Jack the Ripper." 

Sounds epic. It would have been Steampunk before it had a name. Sadly, Goyer butted heads with the higher-ups at Miramax, and had to make something similar to the original "The Crow." Hence, he ran with his Sarah-as-an-adult idea but gave the Crow mantle to an all-new male character. Still, Goyer wishes he could have been more creative, saying: 

"I really wanted to do something completely different, but it was a major battle with Miramax. They were bent on making this film similar to the first. We ended up with a compromise, somewhere in between. If I'd had my druthers, it would have been a female Crow all the way down the line."

Goyer noted that James O'Barr, the original author of "The Crow" comic books, was also keen on the idea of gender-flipping the Crow character for a sequel, although Goyer and O'Barr never consulted on the matter. Sadly, "City of Angels" was a bomb, and the franchise's momentum halted. There was a third film in 2000, called "The Crow: Salvation," but it was barely released in theaters, and few saw it. Goyer did not write it, and it did not have a female title character. Instead, the Crow was played by actor Eric Mabius.