The future of The Crow   

Over the next couple of days, I will take a look at the future of The Crow from two perspectives. The first being the fans and second, the entertainment industry.

A Fans Perspective

Here we go discussing perspective again. As I have stated in earlier commentaries, perspective plays a large role in how fans view certain aspects of The Crow.  The future is no exception. Countless delays in the release of Salvation and the canceling of the Image comics and TV series have a growing majority of fans concerned. The delays with Salvation have been the most damaging to many fans perspective of what the future holds. There is an old Hollywood stigma that if a movie has countless delays, something is wrong. Fans are aware of this. They sense all is not right in the Crow world. To see how we arrived at this point, it will help to review the past two and a half years. The summer of 1998 started off with the beginning of the Crow novels, the most successful being Poppy Z. Brite's Lazarus Heart. The television series debuted in the fall of 1998 and went on to become the fourth highest rated new syndicated show of the season and was picked up by 80% of the syndication market. The percentage at which a show is picked up by the syndication market, as well as its viewer numbers, play a large part in whether or not it is picked up for another season. The series did well in both areas, thus Polygram announced plans to renew the series for a second season. Image comics started off 1999 with a new Crow comic series. Sales in the beginning were brisk due to positive reaction by fans.  If having the TV series and new comics were not enough, the movie, ‘The Crow: Salvation', started production in February 1999. It could be said, the Crow was hotter than ever before. The flame that stoked this fire would soon be out. By the middle of 1999, the series was put into limbo by Universal, who had acquired it from a buyout of Polygram. It seems Universal was more interested in their own pet TV series than continuing the successful Crow series.  So, they opted not to continue its production. The comics were canceled by Image after issue #10 in October 1999. After the first story arc, the latter volumes were unable to keep the interest of the fans.  And finally, the Salvation premiere started being pushed further and further out. The one positive note in late 1999 was the release of the latest Crow novel, Temple of Night, by Harper/Collins. So far in 2000, fans have seen the Image comics put into trade paperback and magazine form. The soundtrack for Salvation was released on March 28^th.  It appears that none of these things have been able to turn the negative tide that is swelling among many fans whom are waiting for Salvation to come and save the day. It seems, for many, their future perspective of The Crow is based on the movies, rather that the other projects. Did fans get spoiled by all of the activities in 1998 and early 1999? Maybe, maybe not. Fans of genre movies like X-Men and Battlefield Earth, all know the release dates of their movies. Crow fans, however, are left to ponder what the future holds while Salvation sits collecting dust in Miramax/Dimension's vault.  In my next installment, I will talk about the future of The Crow outside of the movies, with respect to how the entertainment industry sees things.

Take care,

LLcruize