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.
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 reasons are:
- The Crow failed to impress critics and audiences
- The Crow’s competition didn’t help matters
- The stench of development hell surrounding The Crow lingers
- The Crow franchise has been dead for years
- The Crow was another reboot nobody asked for
I’m not sure how big a deal the third point is and the last two shouldn’t stop people from trying another adaptation (which I can’t imagine people are usually crying out for). It’s all about what it brings to the table that is new and Interesting.
So The Thing worked because it wss a much closer adaptation of Who Goes There? the The Thing From Another World. Partly this is down to the advances in special effects but also because I doubt Hollywood had a stomach for that kind of horror back then.
Edgar Wright has re-adaptations of Barbarella and The Running Man but you know he wouldn’t be doing this cynically - if he is investing his time in them then he must have a good angle on how to make his films distinct from their predecessors and he brings his own specific style to everything he does, so they will definitely feel different. Also he’s not put a foot wrong so far and he has to be considered a safe pair of hands that you can trust to do a good job. That should be enough to help him navigate the critical shoals that aren’t necessarily welcoming to sequels, requels, reboots and re-adaptations. Hopefully.
Yeah, the last three points don’t matter at all if it’s a good movie. Most people have no idea how long a movie has taken to get made unless it’s advertised, like how Metropolis is advertised as a movie 30 years in the making or something.
I missed this story so I just read the list and agree. There’s only two reasons that have any real bearing on the films success. The other three are just petty digs.