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. “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.