Luke Evans, who is on the rise thanks to roles in Fast and Furious 6 and The Hobbit sequels, has officially been brought on to play the vengeful rock musician Eric Draven. And the words in the hallway are that the studio always considered Evans their first choice, and the nice dinners with Tom Hiddleston, Alexander Skarsgard, James McAvoy, Mark Wahlberg, and Bradley Cooper were only brief flirtations, a sewing of the wild oats. However wearing Evans’ promise ring comes with conditions. The film has been pushed back to accommodate the actor’s commitments to Dracula and The Desolation of Smaug. After those are fulfilled, he’d better learn to like leather pants. (Deadline)

For those keeping score at home Skarsgard has replaced Hiddleston who replaced James McAvoy who replaced Bradley Cooper who replaced Channing Tatum who replaced Mark Wahlberg. Let’s hope the Skarsgard rumor is true and producers can get a deal locked in. Everyday they wait, brings us closer to Russell Brand playing The Crow. (Deadline)

He’d play Eric Draven, a rocker murdered because his shitty songs about the rain suck who returns from the grave to avenge he and his slain fiancee. The original film was released in 1994 at the height of the grunge era and featured Brandon Lee as the gothic, Sandman-like vigilante. There’s no word if the character will be updated to reflect the mood and trends of today’s music, but how great would it be if the Crow we’re now modeled after one of the guys from Fun? He could still dress like he were from the 90′s.

But what other actor in Hollywood could be so totally wrong for the role?

Mark Wahlberg‘s name has come up again. He was originally offered the film but a deal was never put into place. However, if he still has access to the wig he wore in Rock Star, this could be the right fit. Another name being floated out there is Channing Tatum, who could also work in a that-totally-doesn’t-work kind of way. All I know is that the filmmakers only have a handful of chances to screw up this reboot, and casting is the best place to start. That’s why they should take a chance and look into David Hyde Pierce’s availability. (THR)

The project is intended to be a more gritty take than the original 1994 adaptation which was pretty gritty in its own right. Bradley Cooper is set to star as the vengful goth spirit whose soul cannot rest until he avenges his wife’s murder. So I guess this is actually more a gritty reboot of Bradley Cooper‘s image. Can’t imagine him covered in pancake and burning heroin addicts alive, but the threat of having to do Kate Hudson rom-coms does funny things to a man. (Variety)

Relativity has been busy launching a remake of The Crow, for which Bradley Cooper is in talks to star. Ughhh. However, The Weinstein Company says they have a contract from 2009 giving TWC exclusive distribution rights Crow sequels. They filed an injunction against Relativity, who was shopping those rights around. Now there’s a very public war of words, but will it get to the point where T-Bird gets involved? I guess we’ll see. Here’s what lawyer types are saying:

Team Weinstein: “(Relativity CEO Ryan) Kavanaugh decided that Relativity would not perform that contract and will purport to sell TWC’s distribution rights to others here and overseas in willful breach of contract.” … “If somebody tries to buy those rights other than the Weinsteins, those people will be simply buying a lawsuit.”

vs.

Team Relativity: “This is yet another typical litigation stunt from the Weinsteins who have a long history of threatening law suits with the sole purpose of intimidation.” … “While we expect these types of antics from the Weinsteins, we are shocked that a lawyer of Mr. Fields’ caliber would make such false, reckless and intentionally harmful statements to the press about Relativity and Mr. Kavanaugh. We intend to seek appropriate remedies for this misconduct.”

If the movie doesn’t happen, look for Relativity execs to dress all emo and exact some revenge. (Variety)

The Crow

Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Days Later) has been chosen by Relativity Media to reboot The Crow.  This is a good film to remake, because a film that comes back from the dead is impervious to harm done by movie critics. According to the press release, the new film will concern Eric Draven, but hopefully it won’t be Draven passing on the crow torch to his crow-loving son or something.

“The original Crow was groundbreaking cinema,” says prodcuer Edward R. Pressman. ”Its gothic visual and musical ideas influenced a generation and cinema itself. With Juan Carlos, we have every confidence that his new Crow will have a similar impact on the contemporary audience.”

People still love Tim Burton movies, right? The kids dig that goth stuff. Plus, as long as nobody dies on set, there should be a lot of gloomy money to be made.

Soak it up because it's all you're gettin'.

Remember when we told you Mark Wahlberg might star in the The Crow reboot? Well that isn’t happening now. Aww don’t cry, Emo Kid. Your makeup will run. During his press tour for The Fighter, Marky Mark shared his thoughts on The Happening, and also told Cinematical that The Crow just ain’t gonna fly:

We never committed to making the movie. They talked to me about it and there was a director attached who I was a fan of, and he’s no longer doing it. We just thought about it – ‘is there something cool to be done there?’ But we’re not committed to making the movie.

When you have an “Is it cool?” powwow and in that powwow you discover that it is in fact not cool there’s no possible way you can move forward with it. More producers should ask themselves this question before rebooting a franchise. More often than not they’d discover that what they think would be cool would actually be an unnecessary and stupid waste of time, energy, and money. I’m looking at you, almost every past, present, and future reboot.

A series reboot of The Crow is said to be moving forward very aggressively. Not as aggressively as the high school bullies who will pummel the students the film inspires to wear pancake makeup, but aggressively nonetheless. Producer Edward Pressman was talking up the project, saying the script is terrific and they’ve got an offer out to a major actor. If all goes well, the reboot could be done this year.

Director Stephen Norrington (Blade, League Of Extraordinary Gentleman) has switched up the visual look from its predecessor and made the Crow itself more of a character in this version. "It’s got a personality and a character," says Pressman. I don’t know about you but I’m really hoping it wears a backwards ball-cap, sunglasses, rides a skateboard, and speaks in rhyme. You snicker at that suggestion now, but you wait and see. Just you wait. (MTV)