Part II - JOHNNY DEPP? CHRISTIAN SLATER? BON JOVI?! CASTING ERIC DRAVEN

Before "The Crow," Brandon Lee's biggest role was in "Rapid Fire," an above-average action flick carried mostly by his grace, charm and combination of various martial arts styles years before the phrase "MMA" was popularized. His other credits included "Showdown in Little Tokyo" opposite Dolph Lundgren, little seen low-budget foreign action flicks "Laser Mission" and "Legacy of Rage" and the televised "Kung Fu: The Movie," with David Carradine.

Brandon dropped nearly 40 lbs. to play Eric Draven and was deeply involved in his characterization and fight choreography. His performance was at once natural yet supernatural in style throughout the film, which would define his legacy and remove him from the shadow of his famous father. Here, one of the producers, one of the writers, and one of the actors in the film reflect on Lee's casting and contributions.

Jeff Most (Producer): I saw reports after the movie came out that we were in discussions with Johnny Depp or Christian Slater. Certainly, we're big fans of both of those guys. We did look at a number of actors, but we only fixated and were serious about one person.

John Shirley (Writer): I myself pushed for Christian Slater, who seemed cool and quirky and had a great voice. And the voice seemed important to me. I seem to recall [producer Ed] Pressman wanted to use Jon Bon Jovi! He had a whole fixation on Bon Jovi, as I recall. I am afraid I recoiled, visibly, to that prospect.

Jeff Most: Brandon Lee was the only person we ever made an offer to. We were looking for somebody who could be empathetic, likable, believable and yet have the ability to fight and be an athlete. Brandon had a unique set of traits that were really necessary for the role. We just believed that he embodied everything we were looking for in this action hero who was an athlete, musician, lover, romantic. We really never gave any thought to anyone other than Brandon in any serious way. And certainly he delivered in spades.

John Shirley: I wasn't involved in selecting him. He did, though, seem to understand the character. He was of a generation that got dark heroes, I suspect. And there is that martial arts component. Not just the martial arts, but also the Hong Kong / Japanese Samurai film antecedents. Brandon wasn't so 'martial arts' as his father, but it was definitely there.

Jeff Most: It was a bit of a risk because he wasn't a big star name. He had a bunch of Hong Kong films he had done. He had gone to the hospital on every movie because he was always trying to push the envelope. He wanted to push himself physically and what could be accomplished on film. He embodied the spirit of his father in trying to re-imagine how one can put action on screen intelligently, with substance.

Jon Polito ("Gideon"): I went in for a wardrobe fitting and ran into Brandon for the first time. He was such a charming man. He was incredibly positive about me being involved, he knew my work. I had heard about him from an earlier film and had heard he was a pretty great guy. My experience with him right away was terrific. As were my experiences with [director] Alex [Proyas].

Jeff Most: When he arrived in North Carolina, one of the first things he had me do was find a guitar teacher because he was dead-set on doing some of the guitar work in the movie, most of which he did. Brandon was virtually his own choreographer. He was going to have that little Yugo car come at him, jump up in the air onto the roof, end up standing on his feet facing the opposite direction. We were like, 'That's great, but that's on the last day' [laughs]. He kept working at it and insisting he wanted to do it.

Jon Polito: My first shoot with Brandon was the scene where he comes through the glass door and I say the infamous line, 'S--- on me!', which I think I made up on the spot. Brandon walked through the door with the crow on his shoulder, smashing through the breakaway candy glass. We had to stop because we realized Brandon was covered in blood. He had cut himself in several places.

He said, 'C'mon, let's just go ahead and keep shooting.' And I said to him, 'Brandon, let's not pull a Vic Morrow,' a reference to the actor that had been killed on the set of 'The Twilight Zone.' Which turned out to be a really bad thing to say, in retrospect. But the shoot went well enough. We were all enjoying that the script was so good and that Brandon was so damn energetic and wonderful to be around. It was creepy to look at him and talk to him [in costume]! He was frightening to sit next to. But he was so wonderful.

PART THREE: THE SKULL COWBOY SPEAKS! THE CROW'S LOST CHARACTER.

The Skull Cowboy appears in James O'Barr's comics and nearly made it into "The Crow." An other-worldly guide for Brandon Lee's resurrected avenger Eric Draven, the mysterious figure would have provided a great deal of the film's exposition, setting up the "rules" of the afterlife and Draven's mission.

The character, portrayed under heavy prosthetics by actor Michael Berryman ("The Devil's Rejects," "Weird Science," "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest"), can be glimpsed in a deleted footage montage on the collector's edition DVD of "The Crow" and longer scenes, including one with dialogue, have made their way online. The Skull Cowboy would have first appeared as Draven emerges from the grave.

The absence of Berryman's character from the final cut of the film subsequently caused a bit more footage to be left out, most notably, an extended fight sequence with Funboy (Michael Masse).

In this deleted scene, Funboy slashes Draven several times with a straight razor. Because he went momentarily off mission by helping Darla (when he drains the morphine from her arm), his powers are diminished, making him slower to heal. This would have been explained by the Skull Cowboy. Draven bandages his wounds in the black electrical tape he is seen wearing for the rest of the film.

Michael Berryman ("Skull Cowboy"): I was asked if I'd be interested in the role. I knew [writer] David J. Schow and I was familiar with [comic creator] James [O'Barr's] work. And I said I would be delighted to work with Brandon. I went to Wilmington, North Carolina and started working. It was incredible. I started with getting the head cast, which fit over my entire head and face and was bolted together. It took about four hours to get all of it together and then I'd start my day.

John Shirley (Writer): The Skull Cowboy was just a cool, morbid concept. There was something very William Borroughs - another O'Barr influence, I think - about the character.

Jeff Most (Producer): The Michael Berryman character was really there to explain the rules. The Skull Cowboy appears in the comics. The same thing had befallen him [as Eric]. He was there to make sure he knew he was given an opportunity to put the wrong things right and if he went off mission he'd end up walking the earth in purgatory.

Michael Berryman: When Brandon died, we got the calls right away when the accident happened, of course. And later, there was a call between [director] Alex [Proyas] and [producer] Ed Pressman and myself. My vote was to do the three scenes where there's a confrontation with Skull Cowboy and Eric Draven. There are three attempts where Skull Cowboy tries to tell him he has to kill the ones who killed them both, or he won't be reunited with Shelly. And in the third confrontation, part of which is on the DVD, Skull Cowboy tells him he's damned. And then Skull Cowboy disintegrates.

Jeff Most: We signed Brandon for three pictures. By going to save Sarah, he's in effect cursed and he can't return to Shelly. We used that theme in The Crow television series, that he couldn't get back.

Michael Berryman: I thought [Skull Cowboy] was crucial to the story and Brandon would have wanted it for the story, and for James, and the integrity of the content of the story. The producers were saying because it's a close-up in the loft, we'll see his face and we'll know it's not Brandon. I said put the marquee makeup on him and light it the best you can and get someone who looks as much like Brandon as you can. There's a lot more footage that's never been displayed. When I summon him from the grave at the headstone and we have a conversation there. It just never saw the light of day, unfortunately.

Jeff Most: What was nice about the Skull Cowboy character was that it was kind of a fantastical element that we didn't get to exploit and would have perhaps been able to integrate into sequels. But it was a conscious decision [to wrap things up for Eric Draven]. We didn't need the Skull Cowboy to let him know, 'You're done for, you're going to be walking the earth like me.' We couldn't imagine going on with the character at that time with the loss of Brandon. It was impossible to fill his shoes. It was all too close to our hearts. It was very difficult to envision continuing with what would have been a franchise.

PART FOUR: BEST. SOUNDTRACK. EVER?

"The Crow" soundtrack is quite possibly the greatest alt-rock compilation assembled in the '90s. Coupled with Graeme Revell's hauntingly moving score, bands like The Cure, Nine Inch Nails, The Jesus and Mary Chain and Machines Of Loving Grace perfectly complimented the movie's dark and romantic themes.

Even the bands who contributed cover songs selected material that lined up well with the flick, intentionally or not. Nine Inch Nails covered "Lost Souls," by one of The Crow creator James O'Barr's favorite bands, Joy Division. Rollins Band did a version of Suicide's "Ghost Rider," about the Marvel hero. Pantera's take on "The Badge" was even more savage than the original by punk legends Poison Idea.

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult and Medicine both appear in the film. And of course, Eric Draven's background was enhanced by making him a musician (Brandon Lee even learned to play guitar).

It's impossible to imagine "The Crow" without this soundtrack and certainly several films attempted to follow suit in the movie's wake, with varying degrees of success. "The Crow" music supervisor Jolene Cherry went on to put together 1995's "Batman Forever" soundtrack with artists like Smashing Pumpkins, Sunny Deal Real Estate, The Flaming Lips, PJ Harvey, Nick Cave and Mazzy Starr.

The music in "The Crow" was an undeniable component in the perfect storm of events that lined up to ensure the movie would connect in deep and intimate ways with an intensely devoted group of people.

Jeff Most (Producer): I wanted every song in the movie to be original, unreleased, born of the film. I was considered a crackpot for doing that at the time. Soundtracks were made up of hits, regurgitated top 40 collections. And the songs that were done for the film were not, at the time, the kinds of songs that were put out as singles. I wanted to create this world on camera and with the music in the film.

The first person I asked to join the soundtrack was [Nine Inch Nail's] Trent Reznor. I knew he'd never done anything for a movie. I met with Trent at his house. It was the [Roman] Polanski house, where Sharon Tate was murdered. We spent the afternoon together. He really liked my music taste. We had mutual favorite bands together. We got on really well.

I had brought him the idea of covering a Joy Division track because the original comics were dedicated to Joy Division's Ian Curtis. Subsequently, in later printings, they were dedicated to Brandon Lee. James O'Barr was very influenced by Joy Division lyrics, even while he was a Marine in Berlin, drawing Marine Manuals, doing the comics.

Robert Smith [and The Cure] had never done anything for a movie or TV show, either. James O'Barr had used lyrics from The Cure in the comic books but it turned out he has just written 'used with permission' but had never actually gotten permission. But Robert's manager said he was actually very honored when he read the comic. He agreed to do a song for the movie.

Page Hamilton (Helmet): I thought Brandon Lee being in the movie was really cool, because I loved Bruce Lee, though I didn't know anything about his son. They talked to us about being in the movie but our schedule wouldn't permit it. The scene with My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, that scene.

We shot a video with [director] Alex Winter [also know as an actor from 'The Lost Boys' and the 'Bill & Ted' movies] with footage from the movie. I thought for a video incorporating movie footage, Alex did an amazing job. It's one of my favorite videos to this day.

Mike Lewis (For Love Not Lisa): I think we were the only band on that soundtrack where nobody knew who we were. Everyone else was already proven. We knew it was a Brandon Lee movie and that our song would be in it. We were thinking, 'OK, crappy kung-fu movie nobody will ever see.' But after we saw some of the storyboards, we were like, 'Wow, this movie is like a dark version of "Batman."' We pulled over on tour and called our managers and were like, 'We have to be on this thing!'

It was certainly the highlight of our band's entire career. We had nothing but problems and issues; every bad thing that can happen to a band who signs to a major label happened to us.

I have a double platinum record on my wall, in my office at the Internet company I co-own. I always joke with people that I don't think my band sold a single one of those albums.

Jeff Most: Originally, Stone Temple Pilot's contribution to the soundtrack was going to be a song called "Only Dying," a darkly satiric song mocking death. 'It's no big deal, I'm only dying,' that type of thing. When Brandon was lost months later in the tragic accident, they recognized the obvious lack of humor and that the song was now inappropriate. Some months later, they gave us a demo of 'Big Empty.' I was like, 'Oh, my God, we are so blessed, this is an even better and more brilliant song for us.'

What unfortunately happened with 'Big Empty,' by virtue of the delayed timing of the film's release, was that the song screwed up Atlantic Records and Stone Temple Pilots' single plans for their new album by becoming a massive radio hit. KROQ in Los Angeles was the first radio station to pick it up. The band was actually asking radio programmers not to play 'Big Empty' because they had a different single coming.

But the soundtrack to 'The Crow' took on a life of its own.

Page Hamilton: I was in Sweden a couple of months ago, with insomnia, and 'The Crow' was on TV. I saw the last hour of it for the first time in years and it was just awesome. I still love it. You have a really great good guy and a really great bad guy in that movie. Michael Wincott ["Top Dollar"], the guy is fantastic. He's just such a brilliant, evil guy in 'The Crow.' And Brandon Lee is such a great guy. There's a calm about him. Physically, he's a very attractive, beautiful guy. Clear lines are drawn between good vs. evil. I think the adaptation was really well done. I'm very glad we were part of it.

PART FIVE: REMEMBERING BRANDON LEE AND "THE CROW"

James O'Barr originally conceived The Crow to channel, process and release his anguish and heartbreak over the death of his girlfriend, who was killed by a drunk driver. Brandon Lee, whose famous father had passed away at the all too young age of 32, was cast to play the lead in the film version of the comic.

Many strange and awful circumstances surrounded what would nevertheless eventually emerge as a triumphant and transcendent film. As Time Magazine reported in 1993, sets were ravaged by a storm, a carpenter was almost electrocuted. As the cast and crew have recounted, illness, accidents and even death touched many of them in their personal lives as well. And of course, as is now widely known, Brandon Lee was killed during a tragic onset accident with just days left of filming to complete.

Now, 15 years on, director Alex Proyas' film is legendary, iconic, a standard to which dark, romantic, action fueled flicks should forever be held. Splash Page is looking back not to dredge up the tragedy but to celebrate Brandon's masterful performance, to cherish his memory, and to remind anyone and everyone who has seen this film just how powerful it truly was. Here, some of the cast and crew reflect on Brandon's personality and work.

Jeff Most (Producer): Brandon had a tremendous impact on the script. He did a phenomenal job interjecting his thoughts about how to best tell the story in an organic way.

Brandon was a really funny guy. He liked to play practical jokes.

The Halloween in '92, we were all going over the script at [director] Alex Proyas house. He went into the bathroom and he opens the door and he's doubled over. He looks like he's in terrible pain. We all jump up. 'Are you alright?' And then he spits shaving cream at all of us! [Laughs]

Angel David ("Skank"): He was just such a nice person, so good, so talented and so great in this role. He was probably one of the nicest people that I've ever worked with. He was always smiling. I'm not a new age-y kind of guy, but literally this man walked around with kind of a light around him.

Obviously as an actor and watching his father in every single movie like a hundred times, to be sitting there with Bruce Lee's son was already off the charts.

But then you meet him and he has this grace and light and wonder about him. He's working in frigid temperatures, wet, no shirt, and not one complaint, ever. It was incredible to watch.

Michael Berryman ("Skull Cowboy"): Brandon had a very challenging, physical role. It was really cold, plus the rain machine; what a trooper. He's in the mud, in his bare feet. I was watching his foot where he would launch and jump over the gravestone. He had such athletic ability and grace. He would cover the headstone the same distance and land in the same spot every time.

He didn't have any ego, it seemed like. He was really quite charming. He knew who he was, he was very self-assured. He had a wonderful, wonderful presence.

He invited me into his trailer and we would just talk about philosophy, his dad, my family and growing up, he put on some music that he had written. He was a good friend for a short period of time. He was very positive, very centered, a good sense of humor.

Brandon was really just keen on what it all meant and why the story of 'The Crow' had to be told.

Angel David: Skank was kind of this big puppy dog, even though he was a homicidal puppy dog [laughs]. I kind of became the comic relief. We were doing that last bit with Skank—"I'm not Skank, Skank's dead!" Alex came over and put his arm around me and he went, "Angel, if you do it like that, it's a little bit of a problem, because we're going to hate Brandon's character when he kills you."

We started rehearsing again and I did it the way we did it on screen, with a little more bite, a little more poison. And Brandon came over to me. He had been watching me work on my character and tweak it. He was like, "You're really good." I was like, "Wow, thanks." He was like, "We should work together again." So, half-kidding, I said, "Yeah, we'll do 'The Crow Part 2. You'll bring me back from the dead and I'll be your sidekick." And he thought about it for a second and he said, "No. No, man. We'll work on a movie. But the next movie we do, there will be no guns and no fighting, just characters talking."

Jon Polito ("Gideon"): You can't avoid speaking about the tragedy that took place during a film about a tragedy. With all the sequels, the TV series, you lose the fact that the film itself was historic for many reasons. People at first put the success to the morose element of the real death but I think it's because Alex's work as a director was incredible. It's one of the darkest and most interesting films.

What happened to Brandon changed how guns are treated on set, that's for sure. People had really underestimated the power of blanks and dummy bullets in guns.

I believe that Brandon was, much like on script, fated to have a wonderful life. He was killed on Thursday and was going to be married on Saturday, to this wonderful woman. He was finishing his dream project. As in the movie, he was living the life with this woman that he was in love with and he was cut down. You have to say... Where does the reality end and the fantasy begin? The movie and real life came together in a way that was horrific but historic.

It did seem that it was fated, that he would take that role and then would actually live that role in real life. The only difference is he wasn't able to come back and avenge his death. What happened is he sort of lived on because of the film. His life everlasting is on celluloid.

Angel David: It's so sad, so eerie, because Brandon was engaged and he was in this great place and the character is the same way. The characters have their whole lives ahead of them and these bunch of knuckleheads come in and just change that horrifically. And we've got to give tribute to where the original art and story came from, James O'Barr. He told me his whole backstory. He wrote this from his heart, man. This is his heart and soul here. He went through his tragedy and he put it all down. When people watch 'The Crow' they can't help but identify with it and absorb it.

And who the hell doesn't want to take vengeance in all of the cool and creative ways Eric Draven does? Who doesn't want to be that guy? He's so cool!