The Crow 2024’s Debut Audience Score RT Triples Critic Score (& Breaks Franchise Trend)

Warning: SPOILERS lie ahead for The Crow (2024)!

Summary

• The Crow (2024)
  has a 64% audience approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, tripling the critical score of just 21%.
• The movie follows a resurrected Eric seeking justice with supernatural abilities to avenge his and his girlfriend’s murders.
• The audience RT score not only marks the franchise’s second-best behind the original, but also marks a promising sign for the movie’s box office chances.

After starting off with some dismal reviews from critics, Bill Skarsgård’s The Crow has landed a far better audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie serves as a reimagining of James O’Barr’s iconic graphic novel of the same name, revolving around a man named Eric who, along with his girlfriend, is murdered by a crime lord, but brought back to life with supernatural powers in order to hunt down those responsible. Also starring FKA Twigs and Danny Huson, Skarsgård’s The Crow has gotten off to a rough start with critics, but a modest start at the box office, aiming for an opening weekend of $6-9 million.

With the movie now in theaters, Rotten Tomatoes has calculated reviews from audiences for The Crow and landed a debut score. With over 100 verified reviews, the 2024 reimagining holds a 64% approval rating from audiences on the review aggregate at the time of writing, tripling the critical score of just 21%. This also marks the franchise’s second-only Fresh score from audiences, behind the original’s 90%.

How Does 2024’s The Crow Compare To The Rest Of The Franchise?

The movie’s fairly positive audience score is a good sign for its box office.

Though the debut score is likely to fluctuate as more reviews come in, The Crow‘s audience score is a generally positive sign for the reimagining’s ongoing reception. Up to this point, Brandon Lee’s cult classic original is the only movie in the franchise to hold Fresh ratings from both critics and audiences, with subsequent installments being panned by critics and getting mixed reviews from audiences. See how 2024’s The Crow compares to the rest of the franchise on Rotten Tomatoes in the chart below:

Given The Crow had a lengthy development cycle, in which everyone from Bradley Cooper to Jason Momoa were set to play the undead vigilante at various points, it may not come as much of a surprise that the movie is performing so poorly with critics. The writing seemed even further on the wall when reviews for the reimagining were embargoed until the Thursday night of the movie’s release, a decision studios typically reserve for films they don’t have confidence in. Lionsgate took a similar approach with their other recent release, Borderlands, which similarly took a lashing from critics.

Unlike Eli Roth’s Borderlands, though, The Crow‘s debut audience score on Rotten Tomatoes being Fresh marks a promising sign for its box office chances. Positive word of mouth from viewers is just as powerful as strong reviews from critics, and given Lionsgate only spent $10 million to acquire the film, and it has a $50 million production budget, it won’t require nearly as much money to breakeven for the studio. Additionally, with no major releases in the coming weeks until Beetlejuice Beetlejuice on September 6, Skarsgård’s The Crow could very well remain steady on box office charts and become a sleeper hit.

Could Bill Skarsgård Have A New Franchise On His Hands?

While he has starred in a variety of original titles throughout his career, The Crow continues an interesting trend of Skarsgård bringing his acting talents to a range of franchises. His most famous role remains that of Pennywise the Clown in the IT duology, though Skarsgård has also held leading and supporting roles in the likes of Deadpool 2 and John Wick: Chapter 4, among others. Check out the franchises Skarsgård has been involved in thus far in the charts below:

Though plans for an Atomic Blonde 2 remain in an unclear state of development after Netflix acquired the rights to it, he is still steadily building a roster of more action-oriented fare, including fellow 2024 release Boy Kills World, whose director Moritz Mohr has also expressed interest in a sequel. The question now becomes whether the positive audience interest in The Crow could give Skarsgård a new franchise opportunity. In the time since this article was first written, the movie’s audience RT score has risen to 66% with over 250 verified reviews, indicating audiences are generally enjoying the reimagining.

Ultimately, the chances of a sequel to The Crow will come down to how the movie performs at the box office. Despite initial projections of $6-9 million, the movie is now only closing out its opening weekend with $4.6 million and the No. 8 spot, indicating a slow start to its financial run. Additionally, given The Crow‘s ending largely concluded Eric’s story, save for a very brief tease of him retaining his powers in purgatory, the franchise’s potential return may be all but dead. Even still, with Skarsgård returning for the IT: Welcome to Derry prequel show, he at least has other franchise opportunities in his future.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes