While the summer movie season has been generally strong for the last couple of months, this past weekend was a bumpy ride so far as new releases were concerned. MGM’s “Blink Twice,” the feature directorial debut of Zoe Kravitz, did well enough for itself with a $7.3 million domestic start. Unfortunately for Lionsgate, the long-gestating “The Crow” remake didn’t fare nearly as well, to put it mildly. The new adaptation of James O’Barr’s graphic novel of the same name had nothing shy of a disastrous start to its box office run.
Director Rupert Sanders’ “The Crow” took in an estimated $4.6 million on its opening weekend, placing at number eight on the domestic charts. That was just barely above “Despicable Me 4” ($4.4 million), a movie that has been in theaters for going on two months. It also failed to gross more than the “Coraline” 15th anniversary re-release ($5 million), which is on its second weekend. Not only was this well below already low projections, it was less than half of what the original “Crow” made on its opening weekend in 1994, as that version opened to $11.7 million in its day.
The film carries a production budget of $50 million before marketing costs, making this a huge whiff for all involved. Fortunately, Lionsgate is only on the hook for the domestic rights, which set the studio back about $10 million. That’s good, as Lionsgate recently had to suffer the disaster that was “Borderlands.” Still, the investors, overseas distributors, Sanders, and a great many others are now on the wrong side of one of 2024’s biggest financial misfires.
What went wrong here? How did the producers miss the mark so badly? We’re going to go over the biggest reasons that “The Crow” failed to fly high at the box office. Let’s get into it.
The Crow failed to impress critics and audiences
It’s a tale as old as time but when a movie is met with overwhelmingly negative reviews, it can be exceptionally tough to overcome. To that end, “The Crow” currently holds a mere 19% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s worth noting that the score went up a bit too, as the earliest wave of reviews were almost all negative. It also earned a B- CinemaScore, which is right in line with “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1.” Sad to say, that’s not great company to be in from a dollars and cents perspective.
/Film’s Witney Seibold called “The Crow” remake “lifeless” and “meaningless” in his 3.5 out of 10 review. Granted, certain audiences have responded a little better, as the film holds a semi-respectable 65% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Still, that’s not exactly enough to generate meaningful word of mouth from here on out. Every indicator we have suggests that things are only going to get worse as the days roll on. At best, people are going to wait to watch this one at home once it hits VOD.
The Crow’s competition didn’t help matters
Not that this movie, as it exists, was likely to thrive anywhere on the release calendar in 2024, but it didn’t help matters that there was plenty of competition in the R-rated space over the weekend. For one, “Deadpool & Wolverine” ($18.3 million) returned to the number one spot in its fifth weekend as Marvel’s latest continues its ridiculous run. Meanwhile, “Alien: Romulus” ($16.2 million), which topped the box office charts last weekend, continued its run holding onto the number two spot. So the top two movies on the charts this weekend were R-rated crowd-pleasers in beloved franchises.
Beyond that, the aforementioned “Blink Twice” is also an R-rated affair. For audiences who weren’t specifically interested in “The Crow” and merely wanted to go to the movies, there were plenty of other options with far better buzz to invest both time and money into. That left little room for this reimagining of the 1994 classic to thrive, even if we were to set aside the terrible reviews for a moment. It was bad timing.
The stench of development hell surrounding The Crow lingers
While the average moviegoer might not be aware – or care all that much – it’s undeniable that for a certain section of more obsessive onlookers, the stench of development hell is hard to ignore here. “The Crow” remake has been in some form of development for well over a decade. There was even a version that would have starred Bradley Cooper around 2011. Various incarnations have come and gone over the years, with directors leaving, the IP changing hands, and actors spending time attached to the project only to leave for greener pastures. It has seemed like a mess for a long, long time.
In 2018, Jason Momoa (“Aquaman”) was due to star as Eric Draven in a version directed by Corin Hardy (“The Nun”), which was literally days away from shooting before the plug got pulled at the last second. This movie is just one of those seemingly cursed projects, and even when the pieces finally came together, they just didn’t gel in a way that resonated with the intended audience. Bill Skarsgard is a very likable star in the right role. Sanders has directed some hits, such as “Snow White and the Huntsman.” Unfortunately, none of this could save this project from its apparent fate.
The Crow franchise has been dead for years
There is/was a fair amount of nostalgia for 1994’s original adaptation of O’Barr’s comic, which starred the late Brandon Lee as Eric Draven. However, ever since the actor’s tragic passing on the set of that film, “The Crow” franchise has had a very tough time finding its footing. The last time a movie in this series arrived in any form was 2005’s direct-to-video “The Crow: Wicked Prayer,” which was not exactly a critical darling, to put it gently.
The sequels never matched up to the original and audiences haven’t had anything at all within this franchise to hold onto for nearly 20 years. That means it has probably been hard to cultivate a meaningful number of new fans. Plus, the last couple of entries in the series weren’t received well. The franchise has essentially been dead for a long time, and the people who were invested in the remake at all appeared to be more nervous than excited. Even Alex Proyas, the director of the original, was putting negativity out into the world regarding the remake long before its release. It ended up being a failed revival of a long-dead franchise.
The Crow was another reboot nobody asked for
On a similar note, but looking at a broader trend in Hollywood over the last decade and change, “The Crow” is just the latest example of a reboot that didn’t have much of a reason to exist beyond a hopeful cash grab. The “one movie at a time” mentality just hasn’t been as much of a thing ever since the Marvel Cinematic Universe showed studios what is possible. But that’s an exception, not a rule. Time and time again, we’ve seen studios go for IP just because it’s IP that is recognizable and might offer the chance of more than just one movie. “The Crow” fell victim to that same mentality.
The problem is that this seems to rarely work. Just look at what happened with “The Fall Guy” earlier this year. It was a big-budget adaptation of a TV show people hardly remember. Even though it garnered great reviews, it failed to do what it needed to in theaters. We can also look at stuff like 2019’s “Charlie’s Angels” or 2020’s “Dolittle,” as a couple of examples, though there are near-countless others. The “brand” doesn’t mean anything to audiences in most cases unless it’s something they already love. Even then, if the end results are not good, the movie only goes so far. This is just the latest example of broken thinking ending in disasters.
“The Crow” is in theaters now.
