The long-in-development reboot of The Crow has gone through a vast number of attached talent in its pained journey just to get the end of pre-production, including stars Mark Walhberg and Bradley Cooper, screenwriter Nick Cave, and first assigned director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later). The latest director on the project is F. Javier Gutierrez (Before the Fall) and most recently it looked like Tom Hiddleston of Thor and The Avengers was in talks to star in the title role, as was Alexander Skarsgard of True Blood fame.

Well, the news of either Hiddleston or Skarsgard’s imminent casting seems to have been little more than wishful thinking on the part of many because it appears that the role has been filled by Welsh actor Luke Evans, soon to be seen in Fast & the Furious 6 and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Evans, who recently also signed on to star in Universal Pictures’ summer 2014 release Dracula Year Zero, could previously be seen in the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans as well as Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood and the 3D re-do of The Three Musketeers.

The reboot of The Crow is being financed by Relativity Media and legendary producer Edward Pressman will be serving in the same behind-the-scenes capacity as he did on the 1994 original, which was based on the classic graphic novel by James O’Barr. Evans will be stepping into a role embodied most memorably by Brandon Lee, who was killed in a tragic on-set accident involving a prop gun while making the original Crow. Actors who played the role in subsequent theatrical and direct-to-video sequels include Vincent Perez and Edward Furlong, and Mark Dacascos starred as O’Barr’s face-painted avenging angel in a short-lived syndicated series based on the first movie.

The reboot has a historically lousy reputation with holding onto lead actors, but though Evans has never done any impressive film work to date, he has a solid screen presence and can certainly capture a sizable portion of the female moviegoing audience. With any luck he will stay on the production long enough to actually get before the cameras and maybe defuse some of the toxic buzz that has been hanging over this reboot like a depressing dark cloud since it was first announced. Maybe.

[Source: Deadline]