The First Look At ‘The Crow’ Reboot Is Out, And People Sure Have Thoughts: ‘Like Machine Gun Kelly Cosplaying Jared Leto’s Joker’

You are not the only one who’s heard about The Crow reboot in several iterations over the past few decades while possibly fearing that it would come to fruition. The talk persisted despite Brandon Lee’s performance in the 1994 Miramax movie (which faithfully brought James O’Barr’s graphic novel to life) fitting the very definition of “iconic.” Hollywood can never resist retooling beautiful things, so this turn of events isn’t necessarily surprising, but it also feels doubly disheartening that Lee suffered a fatal accident while making the original movie, and still, cinema will not let his memory RIP.

A reboot was eventually going to happen, even after unremarkable sequels. Earlier this week, Lionsgate announced that The Crow had even moved up on the release schedule to June 2024, so this is happening close to the Lee film’s 30-year anniversary. Rupert Sanders (Ghost in the Shell, Snow White and the Huntsman) is directing, Bill Skarsgård is on hand for the Eric Draven role, and FKA Twigs will portray Shelley Webster. As viewers recall, the original film saw the pair murdered on Devil’s Night (Oct. 30), and the brutal way that Shelley was killed (and Eric was thrown out a window) drove a crow to carry Eric’s soul back from the dead, so that he could seek vengeance.

Lionsgate recently unfurled a synopsis for the reboot, which appears to be changing the reason why the pair was targeted. In the 1994 film, Shelley had been protesting anti-tenant practices, and for the 2024 movie, “demons of her dark past” will be afoot. Hmm:

Soulmates Eric Draven (Skarsgård) and Shelly Webster (FKA twigs) are brutally murdered when the demons of her dark past catch up with them. Given the chance to save his true love by sacrificing himself, Eric sets out to seek merciless revenge on their killers, traversing the worlds of the living and the dead to put the wrong things right.

Fast forward a few days, and Lionsgate released first images from the film via Vanity Fair:

Well, at least this version of Eric Draven doesn’t appear to simply be a carbon copy of Brandon Lee’s portrayal, and these are only photos, as well, but the responses are still coming fast and furious. Let’s just say that Jared Leto’s Suicide Squad version of the Joker is on plenty of people’s fingertips via social media. “Eric my love I’m so sorry” and “machine gun kelly cosplaying jared leto’s joker” are also in the mix, as well as “this is an outrage and an insult to goths everywhere.” Oh boy.

The Crow reboot goes “caw!” in theaters on June 7.