If we were more superstitious, we’d start to wonder if the new version of The Crow was suffering under some sort of creative curse (anyone know if Harvey Weinstein has any dark magicians on his payroll?) Why? The film has just lost yet another director, with the team at Twitch reporting that 28 Weeks Later**’s Juan Carlos Fresnadillo is giving up the job and moving on to other projects.
It’s just the latest negative development in a movie that has seen several to date. Originally, Stephen Norrington was attached to direct, working from a script by musician-turned-screenwriter Nick Cave. But then an unnamed actor showed interest in the lead role of tragic hero Eric Draven, only to decide that he hated Cave’s script. That went in the bin, and Norrington left the film shortly afterwards.
Then Alex Tse was hired to write a new draft and Fresnadillo jumped aboard. For a while it looked like things would go along smoothly, particularly when Bradley Cooper hopped on to play Draven. But a lawsuit over distribution rights from the Weinstein Company scuppered scheduling and Cooper moved on to Paradise Lost instead.
Since then, the film appears to have been treading water and now Fresnadillo – who has been rumoured for Summit’s Highlander remake – is also off the gig. So who will step in? Twitch has heard that F Javier Gutierrez, who last made Before the Fall, might be a possible replacement, but nothing is official yet. And who knows how long he’ll stay? For now, this is one reboot that seems to have had its wings clipped…