Description
The Crow is a 1994 American supernatural action film directed by Alex Proyas, written by David J. Schow and John Shirley, and starring Brandon Lee. It was based on the 1989 comic book of the same name by James O’Barr, and tells the story of Eric Draven (Lee), a rock musician who is revived from the dead to avenge the murders of himself and his fiancée. Lee was accidentally killed during filming, and The Crow was consequentially his last film. Unfinished scenes that were to feature Lee were dealt with by rewrites and digital special effects, allowing for the film to be finished. The Crow was dedicated to Lee and his fiancee, Eliza. On October 30, during the annual Devil’s Night crime spree in the city of Detroit, Michigan, Sergeant Albrecht is at the scene of a crime, where Shelly Webster has been beaten and violated, and her fiancé, guitarist Eric Draven (Brandon Lee), has been stabbed, shot, and thrown out of the window. The couple were to be married the next day, on Halloween. As he leaves for the hospital with Shelly, Albrecht meets a young girl, Sarah, whom Shelly and Eric cared for due to her mother, Darla being a negligent drug addict who works as a waitress for one of the criminals who killed Eric and Shelly. Shelly pleads to Albrecht to tell Eric to take care of Sarah, Albrecht tells her everything will be okay and tells Sarah that Shelly will be fine, but Sarah knows that Shelly will later die. A year passes since the tragic events, Sarah visits Eric and Shelly’s graves and leaves flowers. As she leaves the cemetery, a crow swoops down and lands on Eric’s headstone and taps it as if to wake Eric. Later that night, Eric awakens from death and climbs frantically out of his grave, trembling and wracked with convulsions. Eric follows the crow through the streets of Detroit and finds some boots in a dumpster for him to wear. Eric is led to his old apartment and finds it derelict. He is met by his cat Gabriel who is still alive and remembers his old master. He goes into flashbacks of his death, remembering that he and Shelly were murdered by local thugs T-Bird, Tin-Tin, Funboy, and Skank, all of who work for a notorious gang boss named Top Dollar. Eric swings out the window he was thrown out of, piercing his hands on shards of glass. He sees his wounds regenerate and close, discovering that any wounds he suffers heal immediately, and that he, being dead, is now immune to physical harm. He then replaces his burial clothes with dark, imposing attire, and paints his face in a parody of a porcelain harlequin mask, decorating his lips and eyes with black, scar-like slashes. Guided by the crow, he sets out to avenge his and Shelly’s deaths. Brandon Lee sustained an accidental gunshot wound on the set of the film at EUE Screen Gems Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina, on March 31, 1993. He was taken to an area hospital, where he later died. There were eight days left before shooting of the film was to be completed. The scenes involving Lee and Sofia Shinas’ characters in their apartment had been saved for the end of filming so that Lee could work the final week without makeup. In the story, Lee’s character Eric Draven comes home to find a gang of thugs raping his girlfriend, and he is shot and killed by Michael Massee’s character Funboy. Weeks prior to the event, a scene had been filmed that required shells to be shown being loaded into the handgun. Rather than using dummy rounds, inexperienced crew members, pressured by time constraints, purchased live ammunition, removed the bullets, dumped the gunpowder, and then replaced the bullets back into the empty cartridges with the live primers still in place.34 Unbeknownst to the crew, the bullet from one of the rounds became lodged in the barrel of the gun. It is believed that someone on set was playing with the gun, pulled the trigger and inadvertently caused the live primer to fire; this would have resulted in the bullet moving a couple of inches into the barrel of the gun (known as a “squib”-type misfire). When the time came to film the scene where Funboy shoots Eric, the same gun was loaded with blank cartridges. As the production company had sent the firearms specialist home early, responsibility for the guns was given to a prop assistant who was not aware of the rule for checking all firearms before and after any handling. Therefore, the barrel was not checked for obstructions when it came time to load it with the blank rounds. When the gun was fired, the propellant in the blank round – which is used to give the visible effect of a gunshot – dislodged the bullet and propelled it through Lee’s abdomen and into his spine, where it lodged. The injury caused massive blood loss. Soon after the accident, Lee was taken to the New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, where he died about 12 hours later, at 1:04 p.m. After Lee’s death, the producers were faced with the decision of whether or not to continue with the film. Sofia Shinas, who had witnessed the accident, did not want to continue and went home to Los Angeles. The rest of the cast and crew, except for Ernie Hudson, whose brother-in-law had just died, stayed in Wilmington. Paramount, who were initially interested in distributing The Crow theatrically (originally a direct-to-video feature), opted out of involvement due to delays in filming and some controversy over the violent content being inappropriate given Lee’s death. However, Miramax picked it up with the intention of releasing it in theatres.
Near mint condition.
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