‘The Crow’ Remake Needs A New Director; Stephen Norrington Has Moved On
There’s more news on the remake ofThe Crow. Earlier this week we heard that the lead role had beenofferedtoMark Wahlberg. Now there’s word, straight from the filmmaker, that directorStephen Norringtonhas moved on. Details on the reason for his departure are after the jump.
Comics2Filmtalked to Mr. Norrington after the word came out that Mark Wahlberg had been offered the lead. He said,
The root of the problem, from his angle, is that a star had become involved with the project and rejected the script that Mr. Norrington had penned and thatNick Cavehadrecently revised. This star wanted a page-one rewrite from a new screenwriter. The director did not say that the star is Mark Wahlberg, and Comics2Film inferred from the email exchange with the filmmaker that Mr. Wahlberg isnotthe one who asked for the new script. (A typo in the original draft of this story — the missing word ‘not’ — suggested that C2F had inferred itwasMr. Wahlberg — my apologies for any confusion.)
As Mr. Norrington said,
As I had gotten involved explicitly as a writer-director my exit was inevitable. I was bummed. I had developed a genuinely authentic take that respected the source material while moving beyond it, and Nick Cave came in and added more depth… I think the fans would have been pleasantly surprised.
The notion of Nick Cave working onThe Crowwas enough to pique my interest — it’s a hire that is almost fancifully on the nose, but I’ll take a Nick Cave script when I can get one. If that work is truly being jettisoned it’ll be back to total disinterest on this one until we hear details that suggest this version ofThe Crowis really worth following.
Rather than working onThe Crow, Stephen Norrington will move forward withThe Lost Patrolfor Legendary Pictures, and says he’s got “an indie animation/live action project, which will take a few years to complete.”
