Lionsgate is having an unusually difficult year at the box office, with two back-to-back bombs of legendary proportions. After the cursed video game adaptation Borderlands tanked with just $15 million domestically and $30-odd million worldwide, the horror reboot The Crow somehow lowered the bar. The film hasn’t yet passed a single meaningful milestone either domestically or worldwide, even as it’s effectively ignored by audiences after a disastrous two-week run.
The Crow has generated $9 million domestically and $18 million worldwide so far, which means that the movie has no chance of recovering its reported production budget of $50 million during its theatrical run. The Crow might also struggle to overtake the $25 million lifetime global haul of 1996’s The Crow: City of Angels. In fact, the movie’s per-theater average dropped to just $59 this week, even as it plays in over 2,700 domestic locations. For context, the two-month-old Deadpool & Wolverine had a per-theater average of nearly $250 million on the same day.
Lionsgate released Borderlands on digital streaming platforms just a couple of weeks after its theatrical debut, and a similar window can be expected for The Crow as well. Directed by Rupert Sanders, who has worked exclusively in big-budget cinema previously — he directed Snow White and the Huntsman and Ghost in the Shell — the movie stars Bill Skarsgård as Eric Draven, a man who comes back from the dead to avenge his girlfriend, played by FKA Twigs.
‘The Crow’ Is Based on the Comic Book Series by James O’Barr
The movie has had a long journey to release; previous iterations had stars such as Bradley Cooper, Jack Huston, Luke Evans and Jason Momoa attached. The original film, also titled The Crow, was directed by Alex Proyas and starred Brandon Lee in the titular role. Lee tragically lost his life in an on-set accident, cutting short his promising career and prompting the filmmakers to complete shooting with Chad Stahelski as a body double for Lee. Released in 1994, the movie has developed a cult following, but was also a box office success upon release, grossing $95 million worldwide against a reported budget of over $20 million.
The new film opened to toxic reviews, and currently sits at a “rotten” 23% approval rating on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. The movie also earned a terrible B- CinemaScore from opening day audiences, and currently has a 64% audience score on RT. In her review, Collider’s Therese Lacson described the movie as “a perfect Gen Z successor to the original.” You can watch The Crow in theaters, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
