Dont check the calendar.
Its not April Fools Day.
This week,a new film version ofThe Crowis actually coming to theaters.
Bill Skarsgård in The Crow.Image: Lionsgate
Check it out below.
Germain Lussier, io9: So, I saw the movie yesterday and I really liked it.
And so they look in a bit deeper to things.
Walking down the street inThe Crow– Lionsgate
But, you know, its always a challenge of making something that people care about.
As artists, we are interpreters and I interpreted this movie through my lens.
And when you came on, did you see any of the previous materials or did you start fresh?
Eric and Shelly inThe Crow. – Lionsgate
Sanders:I didnt really know much about the [other versions].
I dont really read the trades that much.
Films are very hard to make, as you know.
A budding romance in The Crow – Lionsgate
Theres no simple red carpet leading to set.
Its a ferocious battle to get a movie made.
I think we made this movie inexpensively with a very interesting cast.
The Crow opens Friday – Lionsgate
We made it R-rated.
We made it, in a way, the same way as the original movie was made.
We shot it in Europe.
We finished the movie in London.
We had a very UK-based, Czech-based crew.
And we just did our thing.
Do you know what I mean?
io9: That was my initial thought coming out of it.
I think that it will have that kind of effect.
But when you came on though, you werent beholden to anything that anybody did before?
This is completely just yours and the writers?
io9: All right.
What about it resonates?
Were all going to lose people we love and were all going to die.
And there was just something about exploring that in a way that kind of embraced the melancholy of that.
I was going through grief at the time and that was very present to me.
And so I felt very, like, heightened to that, I guess.
But at its essence, its a really beautiful love story for young people.
James OBarr describes his book as a Cure song.
I feel the movie is a Cure song.
Talk to me about like the balance of that.
I mean, it feels like its almost half the movie.
It really draws you in.
Dd you play with that at all in the editing?
Making a little shorter?
Get to the action sooner?
Sanders:Oh, yeah, there were people who wanted it to be four minutes.
io9: [Laughs] Well, Im glad its not that.
Sanders:No, me too.
I fought hard to have it.
But another big departure from the original source material is that Shelly is a real character.
Shelly is a woman.
There was no real female sensibility to the previous movie.
So its very important that we fell in love with her as much as Eric did.
And also, Erics not on a blind mission of revenge.
That feels outdated to me.
Like hes killing people.
Hes crying while hes doing it because he doesnt want to do it.
But he knows its the only way hes going to bring her back.
And also hes prepared to give up his eternal soul for her mortal life.
And I think thats deeply romantic.
io9: Yeah, absolutely.
So Im wondering for both of them, did you seek them out?
It feels like the graffiti is from the back of a Frosted Flakes package.
It doesnt feel like youre in kind of the 90s Brooklyn of Keith Haring and stuff.
And I think that they both come from an independent world whether it be in film or music.
Theres a real natural emotion to them.
io9: But how did you like end up finding that?
Sanders:Bill, Id actually, Id cast before.
There was no script at that stage and he shot some stuff.
And it was really just like, Wow, there was no question that it was Bill.
And then the chemistry really was just the first day on set.
So we were lucky and, you know, maybe Im just a really good matchmaker.
io9: Wow, okay.
Yes I think so.
One of the other stars in the movie are the crows.
There are so many crows.
Im curious, were there any practical crows?
I couldnt really tell which is the point.
Sanders:We were prudent in how many we did practically.
So I shot a lot of the close-ups of the crows and then we did some CG.
That gave us the scope and that was Prague.
That is such a drastic shift.
Its just like, Yeah, thats cool, lets fuck him up that way and then there like…
The ability to sing and to dance on stage and what humans can achieve but then also humans arethis.
Its both ends of the spectrum but both are given the same kind of grandeur.
Im very pleased with how the opera sequence turned out because you never know.
io9: Interesting, Ill do that.
Maybe this will be a gateway into that as well as the source material.
Im hoping youll elaborate a little bit on how you see that relationship.
Sanders:I mean, I think its like theater.
That would be the dream.
And then this movie can never get made so its cursed.
We had no live-firing guns at all on set.
Everything was done afterward because there was no reason to.
To me safety is primary.
I would never put anyone at risk.
Its just not worth the risk.
io9: All right.
Mr. Sanders, thank you so much for your time today and congrats on the movie.
I hope even if it doesnt find the big box office that it finds the life it deserves.
Sanders:Yeah, I think it will.
io9: I think so too.
Want more io9 news?
News from the future, delivered to your present.
