Crow Movie Back On - New Writer And Director Named

[Brendon Connelly]

A recent attempt to reboot The Crow movie series, the undead-rocker-revenge story, based on a comic by James O'Barr, collapsed amidst legal squabbles between the Weinsteins and Relativity Media - no prizes for guessing which of those parties was coming down on the other. Just yesterday, the two parties announced that the fight was over, and as in so many of the comic book crossovers of my youth, these former enemies were now teaming up:

The lawsuit between Relativity Media and The Weinstein Company concerning The Crow has been amicably settled out of court, and the parties will continue to work on the film together as planned. In addition, Relativity Media has dismissed all of its claims against The Weinstein Company for any wrongdoing regarding the release and distribution of Nine, and The Weinstein Company has dismissed all of its claims against Relativity Media.

And will you look at that - the dispute over Nine was settled too. Bonus. For The Weinsteins.

Now, with the ink just dry on that agreement, the two companies have already found time to dial up a new writer and a new director. Slick.

The first bit of breaking news appeared at Deadline:

Jesse Wigutow is making a deal to write the script... Wigutow hasIrreparable Harmset up at HBO Films, recently rewrote Robert Ludlum?s The Osterman Weekend for Summit, and has Age Inappropriate with Offspring at Universal.

Followed quickly by The Hollywood Reporter:

Relativity has closed a deal with F. Javier Gutierrez to direct the comic book adaptation... Gutierrez made a name for himself directing the Spanish-language horror movie Before the Fall (Tres Dias), which was a hit on the sci-fi and horrormovie circuit and won numerous awards in Spain. The movie put the directoron the Hollywood?s radar and he found himself attached to several horrorprojects including The Monkey?s Paw.

I've been keeping half an eye on Wigutow since seeing his short Sweet Friggin' Daisies some five or six years ago now, and I'm definitely keen to catch up with Gutierrez' Before the Fall as soon as I can. They sound like an odd couple, but you could say that about... um... Oscar Madison and Felix Ungar, I suppose, and they made for BIG SCREEN GOLD.

Last time around, Bradley Cooper was attached to star for Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, working from a script by Alex Tse. The time before, Stephen Norrington was going to direct from a script by none other than Nick Cave. It's a crying shame somebody hasn't being following all of this for some kind of documentary.

[Joe Kalicki]

Can't rain all the time.

[Comicsfan101]

I still say there's an entire series of books and many of them would make interesting movies. Guess we'll see what happens. As long as they don't talk like they're going take out everything that makes it The Crow, the way they were talking when Cooper was attached.

[xsamxbulletsx]

The Chris Crocker part of me says LEAVE THE CROW ALONE

But another part, the best part, says that this could be a really good adaptation, because The Crow is a story told so many times in different forms, and I'd love to see a new film, in many years and awful sequels. It could be a really good one.

[seanx]

Just film the comic. Do it low budget, in Detroit.

[ahlhelm]

Just film the comic. Do it low budget, in Detroit.

Supposedly that's the plan.

I assume by the time it reaches the screen however, his final battle will be against the evil Anti-Crow.

[Yodamite]

I thought Samuel L. Jackson would have been great as T-Bird in the first movie, but they went with the short white guy from Commando instead.

They really need to bring the 'Cuda (Godzilla) into the remake.