Saturday, March 20, 1993. It is a cold, windy afternoon at an abandoned cement factory
located just outside Wilmington, North Carolina. The exterior chill magnifies tenfold inside
the sepulchral confines of the building, and the cast and crew of The Crow are wrapped in
layers of clothing, trying to keep warm as they prepare to shoot the "Big Moby," as screenwriter David
J. Schow refers to it. It is a major action sequence in which Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) confronts crime
kinpin Top Dollar (Michael Wincott) and his foot soldiers, demanding they hand over Skank (Angel David),
one of the thugs responsible for the deaths of himself and his fiancee, Shelley Webster (Sofia Shinas).
Director Alex Proyas confers with cinematographer Dariusz (Crimson Tide) Wolski, and the take is readied.
"I see you have made your decision," Lee says.
"I am getting bored with this. Kill him," Wincott growls, and 20 thugs open fire with an arsenal of automatic weapons.
But the 23 squibs attached to Lee's chest blow simultaneously, the force of the blast throwing the actor off the edge of the
table in which he stands and onto the crash mat below.
A second take is set up. Production assistants fervently sweep up the hundreds of spent shell casings littering the floor.
The next attempt is better: Squibs blow on cue as Lee performs a spastic marionette death dance before smoothly break-falling
onto the mat. A red mist of fake blood hangs in the air, outlining where he stood.
"Man, that must hurt," a PA says as perfectionist Proyas calls for a third take. "You could die doing that."
Those words proved eerily prescient.
Like its protagonist, a rock musician who comes back from the dead tp avenge his murder and the rape/killing or his girlfriend,
The Crow rose from the ashes of tragedy to become one of the most popular movies of its year. The Mirimax/Dimension release
opened nationwide in over 1,800 theaters on May 13, 1994, grossing more than $50 million in the U.S. alone.
Chances are that The Crow would probably have made as much regardless of the global publicity surrounding Brandon Lee's death, given its superb combination of action and horror. Like Aliens, the film is a near-perfect marriage of elements: Proyas' stylistically astute direction, Wolski's mood-soaked photography, Schow and cyberpunk author John Shirley's script (which captured the dark dynamic of James O'Barr's original comic book), Alex (The Lawnmower Man) McDowell's angular production design, a raucous alternative rock soundtrack combined with Graeme Revell's haunting instrumentals, Arianne Phillips' fetishistic costumes and, above all, Lee's moving, charasmatic performance as Eric Draven. The film also benefitted from a memorable lineup of villains brought to life by strong actors like Wincott (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves), Tony (Candyman) Todd, David Patrick (The Warriors) Kelly and Jon (Miller's Crossing) Polito. If the movie The Crow, like its protagonist, took flight because of tragedy, perhaps that was no surprise, since its comic book source grew out of personal trauma as well.
