Rupert Sanders on Making a ‘Crow’ as Romantic as It Is Violent

Director Rupert Sanders’ new adaptation of James Barr’s graphic novel “The Crow” is, like the 1994 adaptation starring Brandon Lee, a story about a musician (Bill Skarsgård) who is resurrected from the dead and seeks vengeance against the people who murdered him and the love of his life (FKA twigs). Yet the new film differentiates itself from both the graphic novel and the earlier movie in the emphasis it places on the romance — while there’s no shortage of violent revenge, it’s in counterpoint to a tender love story which both balances the action and invests it with greater intensity.

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“In the graphic novel, Shelly [the character played by FKA twigs] is just a flashback,” Sanders told IndieWire. “There’s no real character there. I thought it was very important, in order to go on that brutal journey, for the audience to love her as much as he does. You need to love them as much as they love each other.” To that end, the new “The Crow” takes its time developing the relationship between Skarsgård’s Eric and his love interest, something that proved a bone of contention when Sanders was trying to get the movie made.

“A lot of people were like, ‘Why the fuck isn’t he The Crow on page six?,” Sanders said. “We’re an indie movie, but there was a moment when we were being courted by the studios. They wanted him to be The Crow immediately, which is what I was really fighting against. I was adamant that you had to believe that love story to go along with what happens on the back end.”

Not only does the new “Crow” luxuriate longer in the relationship, it also gives Eric an added motivation for his killing spree; instead of simply being a mission of revenge, there’s the possibility that his sacrifice can bring Shelly back to life.

“He’s not just killing people because someone killed his girl,” Sanders said. “I felt it was wildly romantic for him to give his eternal life for her mortal life. I think we’ve become excruciatingly selfish in this day and age, and I wanted this beautiful love story to blossom for as much of the movie as I could sustain it.”

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That said, “The Crow” more than delivers when it comes to graphic violence, and the violence has greater impact given the romantic motivation at the core. The movie’s greatest set piece is a killing spree in which Eric eviscerates one bad guy after another while an opera performance plays inside the theater he’s making his way toward. It’s a kinetic juxtaposition of high and low culture that’s in keeping with Sanders’ overall desire to encompass contradictions and opposite tones in his film. “I wanted to show the beauty that humans are capable of, but also the guttural violence,” Sanders said.

Ultimately, Sanders’ goal in balancing intimate romance and themes of self-sacrifice with spectacular action was to make “an indie movie that feels big enough to play in an IMAX theater. It deals with love and loss and longing, and I think very few movies at this kind of scale in this kind of genre are allowed to do that. We wanted spectacle as well as an emotionally resonant movie, and I hope young people cherish it as much as people my age cherish the original.”

“The Crow” opens in theaters Friday, August 23 from Lionsgate.