It looks like Corin Hardy’s remake of THE CROW is going to be a straight adaptation of the original graphic novel and Proyas’ ’94 film, at least in the sense that it’ll pit Eric Draven against crime lord Top Dollar (originally played by Michael Wincott) to avenge the double murder of he and his beloved Shelly. But Claire Wilson’s script will have at least one interesting deviation: in this version, Top Dollar will be a woman, and the role is being filled by Andrea Riseborough.
Riseborough’s a British actress you’ll probably recognize as the icy-cool Victoria in OBLIVION or Michael Keaton’s beleaguered girlfriend in BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE). She’s also appeared in Mike Leigh’s HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, W.E., DISCONNECT, and WELCOME TO THE PUNCH.
Ms. Riseborough hasn’t had the kind of testing for this gig that, say, Lena Headey had already aced pre-DREDD, but she had moments of a certain creepy detachment in OBLIVION that gives me the image of a different, yet still unsettling Top Dollar. It’s not easy to out-Michael-Wincott Michael Wincott, so I invite the idea of a radically different take on the character this time around. Hopefully, there’s not a lot of nonsense uproar about this; it’s not like the character being a woman changes anything about the story, and you could literally keep everything else exactly the same (which you wouldn’t want anyway) with nary a hiccup. This move immediately distinguishes this remake from the Proyas film, which is obviously a priority of the filmmakers. The question then becomes just how far they're willing to deviate from THE CROW we know and love, and that's a question I'm curious to see how they answer.
Presumably, the next step is casting the characters originally played by Tony Todd, Bai Ling, David Patrick Kelly, and Ernie Hudson…no small feat!
