The crow adaptation

1. The Crow Adaptation
My next adaptation evaluation, will be James O'Barr graphic novel 'The Crow'
compared to it's feature film 'The Crow' by Alex Proyas. I chose this, as I really
enjoyed the film. The filmdoes well to stick to a good adaptation of James O'Barr
The Crow. James O'Barr The Crow was released in 1994, the feature film was
released later in the same year (May 1994).
To compare between the content within the graphic novel and it’s feature film. They
are not many differences, only a few altercations. To name a few: Sarah in the movie
is named Sherri in the graphic novel. Moreover, Instead of being a girl Eric meets on
a doorstep, within the movie, she knew both Eric and Shelly before their deaths
personally and she’s of a younger age. Another difference is that within the comic
book, the comic doesn’t include the fact that Eric would essentially lose his powers if
the crow were to be destroyed. With this, I watched the movie before I read bits of
the comic. To me, I am not too fussed with the altercations as I really enjoyed the
movie and I wouldn’t have been able to find out about the graphic novel if it wasn’t
through the movie.
Moving on, to compare the film and the graphic novel success, both the film and
the graphic novel receives huge praise and good critics/reviews. Goodreads has
rated James O'Barr graphic novel 'The Crow' a 4/5 and IMDB has rated Alex Proyas
‘The Crow’ a 7.6/10, also the movie has a strong 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Moreover, Alex Proyas ‘The Crow’ managed to get a huge profit of $50.7 million in
the box office with a budget of $23 million.
Moving on to the movie and the graphic novel legal and ethical issues. For legal
issues, if Miramax films didn’t have rights to adapt James O’Barr ‘The Crow’ they
could possibly be sewed and have a lawsuit against them for copyright. Moreover, if
the Crow film were made within the UK someone would have been charged with a

2. fine for breaching the health and safety prosecution. Even worse, in other countries
within the UK someone would have been charged for manslaughter. For ethical
issues, due to Brandon Lee Tragic death on set of the movie, when releasing the
movie they had to remove the scene where Brandon Lee was accidently shot to be
ethical.