As Vincent Perez, Eric Mabius, and Edward Furlong can tell you, Brandon Lee’s iconic incarnation of The Crow is a lot to measure up to, and obviously the success of Relativity’s latest reboot of the film series requires finding the right actor to inhabit that undead avenging angel and patron saint to goth outcasts everywhere. So it’s natural that they’ve turned to Bradley Cooper, whose unctuous alpha-male exterior is really just a mask for a deep inner torment, the endurance of a permanent Rush Week in hell’s most exclusive fraternity. It is only natural.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Cooper reportedly met with Crow reboot director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo in Spain, where they “shared a vision for the character,” presumably one based on Cooper’s wish to break out of the sunny, smarmy roles that he’s long inhabited—his characters’ brash overconfidence and constant winning streaks holding up a cruel mirror to the pain he feels inside—and take him to darker places, such as that time he wore a black wig in The Rocker. Or it could be that Cooper simply made a lot of money for Relativity in Limitless, and now he can do whatever he wants, regardless of how much this story borders on Hollywood self-satire.