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‘The Crow’ reboot is recasting its supervillain as a woman

Honestly, this sounds like a really cool idea!

 

Gavia Baker-Whitelaw

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Posted on May 21, 2015   Updated on May 28, 2021, 6:59 pm CDT

The filmmakers behind The Crow reboot have decided on a radical—and awesome—change to the original story. They’re rewriting the villain Top Dollar as a woman.

Deadline reports that Andrea Riseborough (Birdman) is in talks to play Top Dollar, a gang boss who was played by Michael Wincott in the 1994 movie. She will be the first lead female villain in a superhero movie since Sharon Stone in Catwoman, a decision that may liven up the surprisingly conservative premise of The Crow: A man violently avenging the death of his girlfriend.

People have been trying to reboot or remake The Crow since the late ’90s, to the point where it’s become a textbook example of a franchise stuck in Development Hell. However, we’re beginning to feel tentatively optimistic about the latest attempt, which now has a director and a lead actor onboard, and will supposedly start filming this year. 

While there are a fair few sci-fi movies with female villains, the superhero genre has lagged behind due to the small number of iconic female supervillains in classic comics. Genderswapping a male villain could be a refreshing solution, in a similar vein to Aquaman and Fantastic Four casting actors of color as characters who used to be white.

Photo via Bluesatellite/Wikimedia (CC BY 2.0)

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*First Published: May 21, 2015, 12:52 pm CDT