As we recently mentioned with the release of the loony action trailer for “Boy Kills World,” actor Bill Skarsgård is having a moment and seems on the precipice of breaking through. While his famous acting family members are perhaps better well-known, Stellan Skarsgård for his decades-long career, and older brother Alexander Skarsgård for roles in “Succession,” “True Blood” and “Melancholia,” “The Northman,” and more, 2024 could be Bill’s year, especially due to his leading role in the upcoming remake of “The Crow.”
READ MORE: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2024
Known for “It Chapter Two,” “Deadpool 2,” and “John Wick: Chapter 4,” Bill Skarsgård has three major roles this year: the aforementioned “Boy Kills World,” one of the starring roles in Robert Eggers’ gothic horror “Nosferatu” due at the end of the year and “The Crow.” And we finally have a first look at the film via Vanity Fair.
Directed by Rupert Sanders (“Snow White and the Huntsman” and “Ghost in the Shell”), “The Crow” has been years in the making, and several iterations of it have fallen apart in the last few years, including one version starring Jason Momoa.
Originally released in 1994, “The Crow” was a supernatural kind of superhero film about a brutally murdered man who comes back to life as an undead avenger of his and his fiancée’s murder. The film was very emo goth, to say the least, and Sanders tells Vanity Fair that quality was part of the draw.
“What drew me to this was the opportunity to make a dark romance, something that dealt with loss, grief, and the ethereal veil between life and death and reaching through that,” Sanders told VF before adding, “Look, I grew up listening to Joy Division and the Cure, and this movie is a bit like a Cure song—the beauty of melancholy.”
“The Crow” wasn’t initially expected in 2024, but when Lionsgate pushed its “Ballerina” spin-off from “John Wick” into 2025, the studio decided to move the film up to fill the gap and take that June 7, 2024 release date.
Bill Skarsgård stars as the titular anti-hero, Erik Draven, who seeks revenge from beyond the grave against the men who killed him and his girlfriend. Other cast members include Shelly Webster (aka FKA Twigs) as Erik’s girlfriend, Danny Huston, Laura Birn, Isabella Wei, Sami Bouajila, and Jordan Bolger. Zach Baylin and Will Schneider have co-written the script, based on O’Barr’s graphic novel.
Here’s the official synopsis:
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.
Does this new version of “The Crow” look a little too edgelordy? Maybe a little too emo Hot Topic? Decide for yourself and take a peek at the first-look images below.
