Earlier this year we heard that Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later) had signed on to direct Bradley Cooper in Relativity Media’s remake of The Crow, however due to scheduling conflicts with Alex Proyas’ Paradise Lost Cooper had to pull out. Now according to Twitch The Crow has lost its director too.

The official reason is not yet known, however Fresnadillo signing on to direct Summit Entertainment’s reboot of Highlander last month might have something to do with it.

The 1994 version of The Crow was an adaptation of the 1989 comic book of the same name, and was directed by Alex Proyas (I, Robot). The film followed a rock musician who is murdered while trying to save his fiancée from thugs. He is resurrected by supernatural forces and seeks revenge. Brandon Lee starred in the lead role, but was killed by a freak accident when a dummy bullet became lodged in one of the prop guns and was fired during filming.

Fresnadillo and Cooper are just another duo to have left the project, with Mark Wahlberg and director Stephen Norrington being attached over recent years. Relativity was aiming to begin filming later this year, but that’s unlikely unless they find another director and lead actor. They could just scrap it altogether, which would probably please fans of the original.

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In Part 3 of our look at superheroes at the box office Batman was still the main topic of conversation, while in this feature he definitely starts to takes a backseat. By now everyone knows what came after Batman Forever and while it ain’t pretty, we have to remind ourselves of this dreaded event because only by knowing the past, can you prepare for the future… and not make the same mistake twice. Obviously, Warner Bros. didn’t learn anything from the Superman fiasco.

Before we get to Batman and Robin in 1997, we still have 2 years to go over and we start at June 30th 1995, one of the rare dates that had 2 superhero movies opening at the same time. The first was Mighty Morphin’s Power Rangers, a movie based on the popular 90′s Fox Kids show, and the second movie was Judge Dredd, a $90 million Silvester Stallone Buena Vista (Disney) R-rated action movie based on the popular British comics. Neither of them was #1 that weekend (Apollo 13 was, with more than double both their takings) and with $38.1 million from Power Rangers and $34.6 million for Judge Dredd in North America, there wasn’t much left to write home about. Power Rangers got another shot with a sequel in 1997, but that was a box office bomb with just $8.3 million.

1996 followed with The Phantom, The Crow: City of Angels and Barb Wire, all bad movies and equally unsuccessful at the box office with numbers from $3.7 million (for Barb Wire) to $17.9 for The Crow sequel.

After so much turd, the waiting for the next Batman was finally over in the summer of 1997. Since we were on the subject of turds, Batman and Robin was to become the biggest of them all. Costing a whopping $125 million (one of the most expensive movies at the time), the adventure of Batman, Robin and Batgirl (yes, they had to go that far) made for an excruciating movie that turned into a box office bomb, grossing only $107.3 million in North America and $238.2 million worldwide. So when did all the sucking start? Well, some would say the second Robin entered the series but since we are talking about Batman and Robin here, I’ll start with the recasting of the dark knight with George Clooney. Then there was a goofy Arnold Schwarzenegger playing Mr. Freeze and Uma Thurman was Poison Ivy. Did I mention they got Batgirl in there also? Alicia Silverstone had the “honor” of playing her. Basically everything turned into a bad Saturday morning live-action cartoon that killed that Batman movie franchise. It was time for a reboot that would take Warner 8 years to get round to, but what a reboot that was.

So with both Superman and Batman out, there weren’t that many high profile superheroes to exploit anymore. I mean yeah, there was Spider-Man but that was stuck in development hell since before Superman (1978) came out. Bringing Spidy to the big screen was considered, at the time, too expensive and hard to shot with the technology they had back then. So we were left with second-rate superheroes for three more years.

But, it was one of this second-rate superheroes that started to turn the tide again for the genre. Spawn in 1997 wasn’t that hero but it was certainly not a bad effort. It was a mediocre movie in a time when superheroes needed great movies in order to rise again. Grossing $54.4 million in North America and $87.8 million worldwide, it was a step at least partially in a somewhat good direction. Then came Steel and which was definitely ten steps back, grossing only $1.7 million. Top that!

1998 was the year of hope with not one but TWO good superhero movies. After so many years of darkness, a ray of light was finally on the horizon for this once respected genre. Think of it this way, you know how we hate movies based on games today? Well that’s basically how things were at the time with superheroes in movies.

The Mask of Zorro opened on July 17th 1998 to warm reception and a total of $94 million in North America and $250.2 million worldwide. So what was the secret to go from Steel to The Mask of Zorro? Well for starters Sony and Columbia Pictures got competent people to make this movie, Martin Campbell directed (he previously did GoldenEye and this year he made Green Lantern, according to critics, not his best effort) and a good cast to boot lead by Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins starring as an older version of the titular hero. Steven Spielberg was also an executive producer on The Mask of Zorro, and years later a sequel followed.

So while Zorro was a hit, he wasn’t exactly what the superhero fans out there wanted, actually pretty far from it. It wasn’t Zorro but Blade on August 21st, that turned the tide for the superhero genre. A Marvel Comics hero for once (Superman and Batman are DC Comics), Blade was an instant hit with the fans and without it, Marvel would be in a very different position right now. Blade made $70 million in North America and $131.1 million, so not a huge hit money wise but what really mattered here is that Blade was a competent movie that actually followed the source material and represented the hero as he should be, in an R-rated flick. Blade spawned 2 more sequels in the years to come and single-handedly greenlit projects like X-Men, Spider-Man and other Marvel properties that would become so popular in the years to come.

In Part 5 the Marvel revolution finally gets under-way….

- Superheroes at the box office (Part 1)
- Superheroes at the box office (Part 2)
- Superheroes at the box office (Part 3)

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Batman is the new Superman for Warner Bros and last time around, they were trying their best to not screw things again. In this part we find out how successful they were in making Batman’s sequels not suck and how another once strong property, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, is going down faster then you can say cowabunga. Finally we delve into a lot more lesser known superheroes so prepare you teeth cause we got a lot to chew.

Batman Returns was released on June 19th 1992 to $45.6 million, taking the highest opening weekend record away from Batman and continuing what would become a trend for the man dressed as a bat (yes, The Dark Knight wasn’t the only Batman flick to open to record numbers). Thing is, Batman Returns was very expensive at that time, $80 million, and only managed to grossed $162.8 million in North America and $266.8 million worldwide, significantly less then what Batman did 3 years before. Ultimately Batman Returns was way out there and turned a lot of people from the series. It wasn’t a bad movie, it’s just that it was to different. Now obviously Warner were not going to drop Batman just because of a minor misstep, I mean this was still very profitable and they were sure things could still be turned around in order for Batman III to not become Superman III.

Superheroes based on comic books were obviously the safe bet at the time since they came with a built in audience, but some studios, like Fox, tried their hand with original properties. Such a new, original property was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, released in July 1992. Yep, before the long running successful TV series with the same name, there was this low budget big screen movie that grossed $16.6 million. As it turns out, TV was a much better fit for Buffy. Now ask Joss Whedon, writer of this little flick, if he ever imagined that 20 years later it would be him making The Avengers.

In March 1993 New Line released Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, an abysmal movie that only made $42.2 million in North America and sealed the faith of the ninja turtles so much that it took another 14 years for them to return in an unrelated CGI flick, not to mention Hollywood has been trying to reboot the series into another live-action movie for at least a decade.

On the Batman front things were moving in all but the right directions with Warner Bros. replacing Tim Burton with Joel Schumacher. Then Michael Keaton refused to return so Schumacher quickly found a substitute for him in Val Kilmer. Batman 3 became Batman Forever and filming started in the fall of 1994. But before this came out, a lot of other superhero movies tried their luck with just one managing to stand out of the pack.

There was The Meteor Man in August 1993 from MGM, only making $8 million in North America. Then there was The Shadow and Blankman and how could I forget, Tankgirl, with $32, $7.9 and $4 million. But if you look back, only The Crow, released on May 1994, is still remembered and considered a classic by many. It was a good movie that made $50.6 million in North America and thus became the highest grossing superhero flick not to feature Batman, Superman or 4 teenage mutant ninja turtles. But what really made this movie stand out was the drama behind it all. Brandon Lee, son of Bruce Lee, died while filming a scene that involved him getting shot and little did he know, that would also be his last because the gun used was loaded with real bullets instead of blanks. Accident or not, you can read a lot more about this here.

May 16th 1995, Batman Forever was finally ready and Warner were riding a lot on it because if this were to fail like Superman III, everyone would be in trouble. Fortunately for them (but not so much for Batman himself, as we will see in Part 4) Batman Forever was everything they wanted it to be, opening with $52.7 million (again, the biggest opening at the time) and moving on to gross $184 million in North America and $336.5 million worldwide, thus falling between Batman Returns ($266M) and Batman ($411M). This new flashy, neon take seemed to work well with audiences but was this really the right direction for a superhero as deep and dark as Batman?

In Part 4 we’ll explore how Warner manage to almost destroy Batman, and how that didn’t slow down the other studios from trying their luck at more and more superhero movies in the coming years.

Superheroes at the box office (Part 1)
Superheroes at the box office (Part 2)

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Last week Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, director of 28 Weeks Later, signed on to Relativity Media’s remake of The Crow (which isn’t necessary or needed). Now Heat Vision has word that The Hangover actor Bradley Cooper is in early negotiations to play the lead role.

The 1994 film was an adaptation of the 1989 comic book of the same name, and was directed by Alex Proyas (I, Robot). The film followed a rock musician who is murdered while trying to save his fiancée from thugs. He is resurrected by supernatural forces and seeks revenge. Brandon Lee starred in the lead role, but was killed by a freak accident when a dummy bullet became lodged in one of the prop guns and was fired during filming.

Mark Wahlberg was briefly attached to the remake last year, but nothing came of it. Relativity are moving rather fast on the project, and aim to start filming later this year.

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Who knew, when the first Blade film by Stephen Norrington debuted in 1998, that it would legitimize Marvel comic properties in the eyes of the movie-going public? Without Blade, we wouldn’t have had the Marvel we have today, ramping up towards a unified cinematic universe.

On the other side of the coin, Wesley Snipes’ portrayal of the character became so iconic that he became a tad too full of himself, leading rumors of on-set tension by the time Blade: Trinity swung through theaters to put the final nail in the coffin stake in the chest of the franchise.

Norrington, who was replaced by Guillermo Del Toro for Blade 2, went on to direct The League Of Extraordinary Gentleman, clashing with Sean Connery and disappearing from the directing landscape the hollowed husk of a man who turned the Alan Moore franchise with super potential into the horrible film that no one had fun making or watching.

As of last December, Norrington announced his return with a “reinvention” of James O’Barr’s The Crow, for better or for worse, and he’s also lining up a return to the world of Blade…just not featuring the Blade character.

In the first film, Stephen Dorff (currently in theaters as Homer in Public Enemies), played a younger vampire lusting after complete power over the vampire race as the legendary Blood God. Spoiler alert: Blade stops him, but that’s not enough to stop Dorff and and Norrington from launching a whole trilogy based on the fanger.

Mania.com reports:

Now Norrington told Comics2Film at Mania.com exclusively that he is planning a return to the ‘Blade’ franchise following his work on the new reinvention of ‘The Crow’.

His leading man of choice is Stephen Dorff, who co-starred as the megalomaniacal Deacon Frost in the film. Of course, Frost apparently died at the end of the first movie as Blade cut him down just as he was about to transform into a vampire god.

Dorff told UK’s The Sunday Mail that the new movie would be “a prequel to the Blade movies, Deacon’s story. It’s a new trilogy the director has created. It will [be] cool.”

Norrington confirmed the news although said the movie is “not exactly how the article describes but close.”

The director credits Dorff with coming up with the idea for the new project, which “has evolved into a very interesting story.”

While that evolution may have carried it away from the source material, Norrington tells us the film is definitely envisioned as part of the existing mythology. “The linkage to ‘Blade’ is still big in the equation.”

This is still a few years away, since we won’t hear about any pre-production news until after The Crow is wrapped (and, oh, there are dozens of ways of screwing up The Crow franchise, this coming from a guy who has read Rob Zombie’s rejected The Crow: 2037).

What do you think? Is the vampire-craze going to last long enough for a Stephen Dorff vampire trilogy to have any sort of draw?

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