A remake of The Crow is currently in production and it’s going to star the savagely charismatic Jason Momoa. While the actor has starred in more than a couple of breakthrough TV and film roles, none of those roles have truly catapulted the actor into A-list stardom. Could this finally be the role that he’s been waiting for?
As Jason Momoa approaches his 20th year in the entertainment industry, The Crow might just be the role to cement his place as an A-list action star.
The 2019 remake of The Crow is aiming to be more faithful to the original 1989 comic book created by James O’Barr. The graphic novel is a favorite amongst comic book fans and was the inspiration for the first Crow film.
The original film starring Bruce Lee’s son Brandon, while only grossing $50.7 million domestically, became a cult hit for its gothic storytelling and violent action. Unfortunately, Lee died during the making of the film when he was accidentally shot with a defective blank bullet.
The film spawned three sequels that were not well received, and rumors of a remake have been going around Hollywood for years.
With Jason Momoa now attached, fans of the franchise will be hoping to get a film that matches the original. The role certainly seems perfect for Momoa, as it is a dark physical role that he has become famous for in recent years. This is a far cry from his beginnings as an actor.
Not a lot of people are aware of the fact that Jason Momoa’s first TV role was on Baywatch. Back in 1999, Momoa first graced TV screens as the young and carefree lifeguard Jason Ioane – a role that acting career.
In the past, Momoa has explained that after Baywatch, he couldn’t get any agents to represent him for four years. He was pigeonholed as the prototypical shirtless pretty boy lifeguard, and it took years before he could get any roles outside of that prototype. Considering Momoa’s now illustrious acting career, those days are obviously over.
Today, he’s mostly known for his roles as Conan the Barbarian, Khal Drogo, Frontier’s Declan Harp, and Aquaman. After starring in a quick cameo in Batman v. Superman, and as part of the ensemble in Justice League, Momoa will lead his solo DCEU movie this December.
If he’s been typecast as anything today, it’s as a long-haired warrior-rockstar with an extremely intense onscreen presence. He didn’t invent the type, but he certainly took it to new heights with his recent roles. In Justice League, almost every action scene that featured Aquaman looked like it was grabbed from an epic heavy metal music video. Considering that the character of Eric Draven is an ex-rock star this is one reason why the role is perfect for him.
It certainly wouldn’t be the first time for Jason Momoa to revisit a classic franchise and make it his own. For many young people, the only Conan the Barbarian they know is Jason Momoa, which is a huge accomplishment considering Arnold Schwarzenegger’s iconic portrayal of the character.
The character, like Eric Draven, is a cult classic and had appeared in many different types of media since Robert E. Howard first introduced him to the public in 1932.
While Conan the Barbarian was already popular before the original movie hit screens in 1982, it was Schwarzenegger’s iconic performance that catapulted it to the mainstream, giving it the universal appeal from which different iterations of the narrative grew. One famous example was Conan the Adventurer, a short-lived TV series that rode on the original movie’s hype.
In more recent times, and building on from Momoa’s film, the character has continued to appear in various mediums. The Conan the Barbarian game shows how the famous hero can even be found on platforms not usually associated with fantasy characters.
Such is his place in pop culture that players who haven’t’ seen any of the films, will likely have heard of the character. If the studio handling the remake of The Crow does it right, Jason Momoa and company could rekindle the franchise and give it the same type of universal appeal that still makes Conan popular.
Apart from Momoa, there are other members of the production crew who are also worth mentioning. The film’s director Corin Hardy has a rather short film career, but what he lacks in volume, he more than makes up for in the quality of his existing work.
In fact, he has already garnered several awards for his many short films as well as his only feature-length film, The Hollow, for which he has recently received several horror film awards. Hardy’s mastery of the horror genre will more than come in handy in recreating the dark and gothic world of The Crow.
Additionally, as there’s very little information on who else will be involved in the movie, fans can’t help but speculate on who’ll be in charge of fight choreography. While The Crow is mainly a dark gothic fantasy, a big part of what made the movies and series adaptations such cult hits were the fight scenes.
Production might very well benefit from hiring Jonathan Eusebio who’s already worked with Momoa before in Conan the Barbarian – as we’ve previously covered here on Budomate.
Eusebio has also choreographed fights for blockbusters like The Avengers, The Wolverine, and The Expendables. His familiarity with comic-books-turned-movies – combined with Momoa’s athleticism – could very well turn this remake of The Crow into an action-packed blockbuster film.
As things stand, The Crow is looking like the role that will take Momoa’s career to the next level.