StephenNorrington

By Elisabeth Rappe

Last December, many Goths wept and fans of the late Brandon Lee took to message boards all over our great Internet to protest Stephen Norrington's remake of The Crow. News on the project has been so scarce that you've probably forgotten all about it, or even assumed it was dead and buried. But like its supernatural character, Norrington's Crow is alive and flying and Comics2Film is reporting that Norrington's script has been "very well received" by Relativity Media, and the film is set to go forward with casting. Cue the angry rants.

While the news sparked a lot of angry comments, there were a few fans of James O'Barr's graphic novel who wanted to see a new adaptation that might stay truer to the book. But earlier this summer, Comics2Film ran a rumor that Norrington wasn't going to use the character of Eric Draven, but was inventing a completely new character and storyline for his remake / reboot. Let me stress that little item hasn't been confirmed, but if it's true, it certainly raises the question of "Why bother?" O'Barr fans want their guiding crow and self-mutilation back.

At this point, all we know is that Norrington is aiming to make it "realistic, hard-edged and mysterious, almost documentary-style." Now that I've seen more of the graphic novel (thanks, Google Images), I can't think of a poorer approach to something so deliberately introspective. But who knows? If it's truly a whole new character who just happens to have a crow as a pal, the shaky-cam approach might work just fine.

[via Bloody-Disgusting]

Marvel's Blade universe is a fairly extensive one, with the character crossing paths with such branded standbys as SHIELD and Doctor Strange. Naturally, very little of this was ever used in the Blade film trilogy, and if you longed to see a touch more of the comic series on the big screen, there might be hope. According to Comics2Film, Steven Norrington is returning to the franchise, and spinning a Blade-less, Wesley Snipes-less spinoff.

Norrington and Stephen Dorff have apparently been talking about a Deacon Frost spinoff for some time. Dorff initially broke the news via The Sunday Mail. "It will be a prequel to the Blade movies, Deacon's story. It's a new trilogy the director has created. It will [be] cool. We hope to shoot the first film next year. Frost is a character I have never been able to shake." Norrington confirmed the story, but quickly added that the movie wasn't exactly what the Mail described before crediting Dorff with the idea.

What isn't clear is what path the Frost spinoff will take, since Norrington acknowledged that Blade departed from the Marvel series, but promised that despite Dorff being front and center, "the linkage to Blade is still big in the equation." That probably means they'll link the two via Blade's bitten mother, but I wonder if they'll actually go into Frost's comic past as a immortality seeking scientist. Or did Dorff come up with an origin story wildly different than the scientific one of the comics? We'll see. But is this the way you wanted Blade to return, or could you do without a Frost / Dorff spinoff?