Bill Skarsgård reprises Eric Draven in the 2024 reboot of ‘The Crow.’ (Photo: Larry Horricks, Lionsgate)
Bill Skarsgård, who was a fright as Pennywise in the 2017 horror film “It,” gives a definite post-punk 21st century Goth vibe to ” Eric Draven, aka, The Crow, in the latest reboot.
Lionsgate just released the first images of the main characters, and Skarsgård’s is even darker than Brandon Lee’s Draven in the 1994 original — if that’s possible.
The big difference is Skarsgård’s heavily tatted torso.
Tattoos, of course, are as old as history, but they have been gaining in popularity and going mainstream over the past 20 years, post-dating the original film.
Lee’s Draven had his face streaked like the character in James O’Barr’s 1989 graphic novel on which the movies are based. But Lee’s body is as pale as newly driven snow.
Not so, the latest iteration. Skarsgard has at least 11 visible body tats in the newly released images, including a giant eye design in the middle of his chest.
It’s unknown whether the tats will have any symbolic value at this point. More likely, the body art just reflects the latest trend.
After all, Draven is a musician, so think Anthony Kiedis, Ozzie Osbourne and Alice Cooper with a dash of Post Malone thrown in. Really, the list could go on.
Oddly, FKA Twigs, who plays Draven’s love interest, doesn’t seem to have any tats in the only image released so far where she shows any skin.
It’s odd, because in real life, Twigs, real name, Tahliah Debrett Barnett, sports tats. She also often uses temporary tattoos as part of her performance art.
Her character, Shelly Webster is Draven’s fiancee, but not much else is known about her. The 1994 movie did not go into her background, and it remains to be seen how much of a role Twigs’ reprized character will have.
Sofia Shinas, a Greek-Canadian singer, songwriter and actress, played Shelly in the original film.
The film will have a decidedly dark tone — another Hollywood trend, think “Dark Knight” — and it remains to be seen how far Director Rupert Sanders will go to reprise the gruesome “Devil’s Night” murder scene.
Webster is raped and brutalized while Draven is stabbed, shot, and thrown to his death from the window of their loft apartment in seedy downtown Detroit.
Sanders is probably best known for his work on 2012’s “Snow White and the Huntsman,” starring Kristen Stewart and 2017’s “Ghost in the Shell, starring Scarlett Johansson.
Sanders infamously had an on-set affair with Stewart and broke up her relationship with “Twilight” star Robert Pattinson. She came out as gay not long after.
Shelly’s dark past lead to their murders, but Draven is given a chance to avenge the crime when a crow, lands on his headstone and resurrects him from the grave. He traverses the worlds of the living and the dead to put the wrong things right, according to a synopsis.
Zach Baylin, and William Schneider wrote the film produced by Edward R. Pressman, Samuel Hadida, Victor Hadida, John Jencks and Molly Hassell
Bill Skarsgård in THE CROW. (Photo: Larry Horricks for Lionsgate)