10 Recent Critical Duds We All Saw Coming
3. The Crow
Perhaps the biggest giveaway of a film sucking is a troubled production, and that's just what happened here. Even setting aside the fact that The Crow (1994) was a wonderful movie that never needed a remake, the development hell that this reboot endured spelled disaster long before it finally shuffled into cinemas 16 years after it was first announced.
During pre-production, a variety of directors were attached and various actors were cast in the lead: Bradley Cooper, Luke Evans, Jack Huston, and even Jason Momoa. Eventually, Bill Skarsgard played the lead role, originally played by the late Brandon Lee who died during filming of that '94 picture. Skarsgard was a decent enough choice and he did his best, but could anyone have saved the movie we ended up getting?
This was another film that, if anything, was even worse than expected. It's an ugly, charmless, and mean-spirited mess that devotes a huge portion of its runtime to the risible love story between protagonist Eric (Skarsgard) and his love interest Shelly (FKA Twigs, completely miscast), instead of what people actually came for - i.e. the Crow's vengeance. Well, Eric doesn't even become the Crow until late in the movie. This section does provide some badass action but it's all too little, far too late in the end.
The Crow has become one of the most-loathed movies of 2024, and that reputation couldn't be more earned.