The Big Picture

• Brandon Lee tragically died during the filming of The Crow, so the crew had to use digital effects to complete his final scenes.
• Dream Quest Images used innovative technology to seamlessly incorporate Lee into key scenes of the movie.
• The digital work added only about 30 seconds to The Crow, preserving Brandon Lee's iconic performance and making it a fitting tribute.

A reboot of The Crow is coming to theaters this year starring Bill Skarsgård, but after what was viewed as a disappointing trailer and updated look for the character, it has fans reminiscing about the original. The 1994 version of The Crow, directed by Alex Proyas, and based on the comic book series by James O'Barr, is one of the most beloved action films of the '90s. Before comic book films were everywhere, The Crow felt fresh with its dark look, grungy soundtrack, and the utter coolness of Brandon Lee. Sadly, during filming, Lee was tragically killed in a shooting stunt gone wrong. With him having completed most of his work on the film, Proyas and company wanted to find a way to honor Lee by somehow finishing the project. They did so with some computer technology that would put the effects of three decades later to shame.

How Brandon Lee Died on the Set of 'The Crow'

When Brandon Lee began his career, he had the impossible task of following in the footsteps of a very famous father, Bruce Lee, the martial arts master who became a film icon thanks to movies like Enter the Dragon. Brandon was just eight-years-old when Bruce died in 1973. Brandon Lee worked his way up through films like Kung Fu: The Movie, Legacy of Rage, and in his first American role, alongside Dolph Lundgren, Showdown in Little Tokyo. He received more attention for 1992's Rapid Fire, and in 1993 began filming his biggest movie yet, and one that would sadly be his last, The Crow.

In The Crow, Lee plays Eric Draven, a musician who is killed with his fiancée, only to come back from the dead and seek revenge on those who committed the act. During one take of a scene, a shocking tragedy occurred. Actor Michael Massee, who played one of the bad guys, Funboy, fired a shot at Lee from a revolver. Although they were using blanks, the gun previously had dummy cartridges in it. Tragically, the gun was not checked to see if a dummy round was still in it, so when Massee pulled the trigger, the blank propelled the dummy cartridge at the velocity of a bullet, striking Lee in the abdomen. He was rushed to a local hospital in Wilmington, North Carolina, where he died. It was March 31, 1993, and Brandon Lee was gone at just 28.

Digital Effects Were Used To Finish Brandon Lee's Final Scenes in 'The Crow'

When Brandon Lee died, almost all of The Crow had been completed, but there were still a few key scenes that had yet to be filmed. The producers of the film now had a hard dilemma to work through: did they scrap the project even though it was so close to being finished, or did they push on and find ways to add Lee into the rest of the movie? In an interview with Movie Magic, producer Edward R. Pressman said everyone "felt compelled to finish this work as a legacy to Brandon." With that solved, the question became, how?

It was up to Dream Quest Images to figure that out. The visual effects studio had already worked magic on films like The Lost Boys and Total Recall, and even won an Oscar in 1990 for Best Visual Effects for James Cameron's The Abyss. There were three scenes that needed to be completed in The Crow, all integral to the plot. One of those moments involved Eric Draven standing in front of a broken mirror, his distorted image shown in the shattered glass. To accomplish this, as shown in Movie Magic, digital effects supervisor Tim Landry took an unused close-up clip of Lee, shirtless, wet, and shivering, and traced it with a rotoscope onto a computer. Once that was done, Lee's image was extracted and combined with a computer drawing of a broken mirror. An even more impressive shot had to take a scene of Lee outside and put him inside. In another unused clip, again with Lee shirtless, wet from the rain, and shivering, he walks down a dark alley. The problem was that the film needed him to be walking inside through a doorway instead. To accomplish this, his image was again isolated and extracted onto the computer. With the clip taking place in the dark with a handheld camera, he had to be steadied and color corrected to brighten him up. This was then overlapped with a shot of a doorway to make it look like Lee was walking through it, when in reality it never happened.

The most famous of the retouches is also The Crow's most iconic shot. If you've seen the movie, you know the moment. It's when the camera comes up from behind Eric Draven in the dark as he walks to a round window overlooking the city, a crow resting on his shoulder. We then cut to the front of him, the camera outside the shattered window looking in at Draven. This scene is not Brandon Lee's body, but his stunt double, Chad Stahelski. (Fun fact: Chad Stahelski would later become a filmmaker, directing all four John Wick films.) For this scene, Stahelski was filmed, then Brandon Lee's face was digitally mapped and put over his double. The most impressive part is that you'd never know, as the shots combine seamlessly.

'The Crow' Is a Fitting Tribute to Brandon Lee

The completed digital work adds about thirty seconds to The Crow. This was not a case of half a movie still needing to be made, with digital trickery used around every corner to make an actor look like he's there when he's not. The iconic performance is Brandon Lee's, with only minimal assistance added. When we see the shattered mirror, it's Brandon Lee's face behind it. When Eric Draven walks through a door, it's Brandon Lee doing so. When we see Draven high up in the window, yes, that's another man's body, but that's still Brandon Lee's face looking down over the city.

The Crow was a huge success. Released on May 13, 1994, nearly fourteen months after Lee died, the film made $50 million on an $11 million budget. Sure, some of that attention came from morbid curiosity, with moviegoers wanting to see the movie that an actor died making. There was so much more to it than that, however, or it wouldn't have been such a huge hit on cable TV, living on three decades later. It's the beautiful, haunting imagery that keeps it alive. It's the score, and the simple but attention-grabbing story that keep it going. It's Brandon Lee himself, at once heartbreaking but as much of a badass as his father, who made it iconic. If he had lived, he would have become one of the biggest actors on the planet. Even though he died, for a time he still was. In The Crow, Eric Draven dies and comes back to life. Thanks to those who kept going after an unthinkable tragedy, The Crow allowed Brandon Lee to come back to life as well.

The Crow is available to stream on Prime Video in the U.S.

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