welcome to celeb scene Central rert Sanders the filmmaker behind this week's The Crow the long in the making adaptation of the James Oar created comic book Saga tries to avoid what said about his work in the press and online perhaps it comes from experience he previously directed 2017's Ghost in the Shell starring Scarlet Johansson in the lead role of the Mong to movie adaptation about which a lot of people had thoughts he was then going to reunite with his actress on the film rub and tug in which Johansson would have played a transgender man if not for the fervent backlash that ensued now with conversations around his current movie there always seems to be the temptation to bring up 1994's original Crow movie which starred the late Brandon Lee who died from a prop gun accident on set I think a lot of people are very active online and not so active in life Sanders comments more generally about viewer reactions in an interview with Entertainment Weekly get out and do something and have less time throwing stones still he does recognize that there are some misconceptions about his version of The Crow which stars it and this fat actor Bill Skarsgard as Eric Draven a man murdered along with his girlfriend Shelly but given a chance to return to the world of the living to set things right I think it would be great just for people to know that this is a reimagining and wildly different from the original and that the original is still there I haven't recorded over anyone's VHS he says you can still go and see that movie and I hope this movie resonates with people who loved that movie when they were in their teens this is my version of that text it was my adaptation of James's graphic novel which I loved indeed there are core differences between the Leed movie helmed by filmmaker Alex pros and the current Incarnation there are even Stark departures from The Source material instead of Eric being forced to watch a gang of men rape and murder his fiance before ultimately succumbing to his injuries skarsgard's Eric is killed alongside Shel by henchman working for her former benefactor Vincent Danny Houston a businessman who made a fian deal with a Sinister Force to maintain his immortality ew's exclusive images including concept art of key scenes show a Peak at how Sanders translated this comic book world to live action Eric wakes in a mystical plane of existence where he meets Kronos Sami buila an entity who uses crows as his Messengers between the Realms of the living and the dead because their deaths were caused by unnatural means Kronos gives Eric the power of Resurrection to wipe out Vincent and his ilk thereby saving Shel soul from Damnation this is not a remake it is wildly different Sanders remarks it is a wild ride and it's for the audience of today obars Comics were first published in 1989 as a narrative mixture of Gothic horror romance and rock elements Sanders was drawn more to the romance I wanted to make a dark romantic love story like a cure song he says FK twig Stars opposite scars guard as Shelly a large portion of the film focuses on the characters meeting in rehab falling almost immediately in love as if Eric replaced his drug addiction with her then they go on the run when Vincent's henchmen CLS in on her location Sanders says his take on the material became more about this mythological opportunity to bring the one you love back he explains the gore is in service of a love story it's not just nihilistic splatter Gore just for the sake of it every scene of action and violence is a scene of emotional empathy with the lead actor life and death to 1979 stalker to 1987's Wings of desire to 1990's Jacob's Latter and ghost the comic book imagery played a part in capturing what he calls the edge he points out the architecture and interior designs in the film channel that late 80s early '90s aesthetic but acknowledges a need to modernize the story from that specific culture for which obar wrote the comics the specificity to culture was something that was hugely important to me but the culture that I'm specific to is obviously not the culture that was there 30 years ago he explains I want this to resonate with an audience that it resonated with when they were 17 18 19 20 years old 30 years ago that's the audience that I feel this film is for it's got the grit it's got the weirdness it's got the kind of drugged disorientation that feels like a cult movie but it's made in the scale of a bigger Studio Movie although we're an independent movie and it's like we're trying to play in the big commercial movie space the crow opens in theaters this Friday