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115-545: John Shirley (born February 10, 1953) is an American writer, primarily of horror, fantasy, science fiction, dark street fiction, westerns, and songwriting. He has also written one historical novel, a western about Wyatt Earp, Wyatt in Wichita , and one non-fiction book, Gurdjieff: An Introduction to His Life and Ideas. Shirley has written novels, short stories, TV scripts and screenplays—including The Crow —and has published over 84 books including 10 short-story collections. As

230-431: A troubled future is often called the antithesis of the generally utopian visions of the future popular in the 1940s and 1950s. Gibson defined cyberpunk's antipathy towards utopian science fiction in his 1981 short story " The Gernsback Continuum ", which pokes fun at and, to a certain extent, condemns utopian science fiction. In some cyberpunk writing, much of the action takes place online , in cyberspace , blurring

345-541: A "substantial proportion" of the script, but was denied credit due to a rule in the WGA which prohibited producers from receiving credit. The addition of producer Edward Pressman gave The Crow further momentum, but Shirley would be fired during development after clashing with a development head at Pressman's studio. Splatterpunk writer David J. Schow was brought in for rewrites. From a suggestion by Most, Pressman primarily pursued music video and commercial directors to helm

460-407: A 4K edition of the film was released on May 7, 2024. Cyberpunk Comics exploring cyberpunk themes began appearing as early as Judge Dredd , first published in 1977. Released in 1984, William Gibson 's influential debut novel Neuromancer helped solidify cyberpunk as a genre, drawing influence from punk subculture and early hacker culture . Frank Miller 's Ronin is an example of

575-430: A break for script rewrites of the flashback scenes that had yet to be completed. The script was rewritten by Walon Green , Terry Hayes , René Balcer , and Michael S. Chernuchin , adding narration and new scenes. Lee's stunt double Chad Stahelski was used as a stand-in and digital face replacement was used to superimpose Lee's face onto the head of the double. The beginning of the movie, which had not been finished,

690-535: A computer security professional under the alias "DonJuji". Shirley is known for his cyberpunk science fiction novels, such as the A Song Called Youth trilogy , City Come A-Walkin ' and Black Glass , as well as his suspense (as in his novels Spider Moon and The Brigade ), horror novels and stories (e.g., Demons and Crawlers and the story collection Black Butterflies ) and horror film work. The A Song Called Youth cyberpunk trilogy, Eclipse , Eclipse Penumbra , and Eclipse Corona , has been slated for

805-451: A constant upheaval of new technology and culture, generally with dystopian outcomes. Writers like Roger Zelazny , J. G. Ballard , Philip José Farmer , Samuel R. Delany , and Harlan Ellison often examined the impact of drug culture, technology, and the ongoing sexual revolution, drawing themes and influence from experimental literature of Beat Generation authors such as William S. Burroughs , and art movements like Dadaism . Ballard,

920-568: A cyberpunk graphic novel. Other influential cyberpunk writers included Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker . The Japanese cyberpunk subgenre began in 1982 with the debut of Katsuhiro Otomo 's manga series Akira , with its 1988 anime film adaptation (also directed by Otomo) later popularizing the subgenre. Early films in the genre include Ridley Scott 's 1982 film Blade Runner , one of several of Philip K. Dick's works that have been adapted into films (in this case, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? ). The "first cyberpunk television series"

1035-568: A generic inner city so hellish it makes Gotham City look like the Emerald City". While the plot and characterization were found to be lacking, these faults were considered to be overcome by the action and visual style. The cinematography by Dariusz Wolski and the production design by Alex McDowell were also praised. The cityscape designed by McDowell and the production team was described by McCarthy as rendered imaginatively. The film's comic book origins were noted, and Ebert called it

1150-429: A genre film, said that it had become more mainstream because of the changes. The film was widely compared to other films, particularly Tim Burton 's Batman movies and Ridley Scott 's Blade Runner . Critics described The Crow as a darker film than the others; Ebert called it a grungier and more forbidding story than those of Batman and Blade Runner , and Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote that "it’s set in

1265-526: A high order, stylish and smooth"; and Roger Ebert called it "a stunning work of visual style". The Los Angeles Times praised the film also. Lee's death was alleged to have a melancholic effect on viewers; Desson Howe of The Washington Post wrote that Lee "haunts every frame" and James Berardinelli called the film "a case of 'art imitating death', and that specter will always hang over The Crow ". Both Berardinelli and Howe called it an appropriate epitaph to Lee, and Ebert stated that not only

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1380-543: A hybrid genre combining neo-noir and science fiction or cyberpunk. The Japanese cyberpunk subgenre began in 1982 with the debut of Katsuhiro Otomo 's manga series Akira , with its 1988 anime film adaptation , which Otomo directed, later popularizing the subgenre. Akira inspired a wave of Japanese cyberpunk works, including manga and anime series such as Ghost in the Shell , Battle Angel Alita , and Cowboy Bebop . Other early Japanese cyberpunk works include

1495-427: A major influence on Hollywood films such as The Matrix , Chronicle , Looper , Midnight Special , and Inception , as well as cyberpunk-influenced video games such as Hideo Kojima 's Snatcher and Metal Gear Solid , Valve 's Half-Life series and Dontnod Entertainment 's Remember Me . Akira has also influenced the work of musicians such as Kanye West , who paid homage to Akira in

1610-410: A major studio was quickly dismissed after the studio's vision for the film was a musical with Michael Jackson as the lead. Around the time of The Crow ' s publication, writer John Shirley pitched Angry Angel to Caliber Press , who turned it down due to similarities with The Crow . Shirley sought the comic out and decided to adapt it into a film. O'Barr was receptive and agreed to workshop

1725-497: A meeting with his associates to discuss his plans to burn the city to the ground on Devil's Night. Eric arrives for Skank but a gunfight erupts, ending with Eric throwing Skank from a window to his death. Top Dollar, his lover and half-sister Myca, and his right-hand man Grange escape. Myca correctly hypothesizes that the crow is the source of Eric's immortality. Satisfied with his vengeance, Eric gifts Shelly's engagement ring to Sarah and returns to his grave. Grange abducts Sarah as she

1840-480: A more generalized cultural formation. The origins of cyberpunk are rooted in the New Wave science fiction movement of the 1960s and 1970s, where New Worlds , under the editorship of Michael Moorcock , began inviting and encouraging stories that examined new writing styles, techniques, and archetypes . Reacting to conventional storytelling, New Wave authors attempted to present a world where society coped with

1955-525: A musician, Shirley has fronted his own bands and written lyrics for Blue Öyster Cult and others. His newest novels are Stormland and Axle Bust Creek. John Shirley was born in Houston , Texas and grew up largely in the vicinity of Portland, Oregon . His earliest novels were Transmaniacon and Dracula in Love for Zebra Books, and City Come A-Walkin , a proto-cyberpunk novel, for Delacorte. He also wrote

2070-692: A new edition by Dover Books in 2017. His tie-in novels include the best-seller BioShock: Rapture . His best known script work is the film The Crow , for which he was the initial writer, before David Schow reworked the script. He also wrote scripts for Deep Space Nine and Poltergeist: The Legacy . He was nominated for an Emmy in the Prime Time Animation category for an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Authors David Agranoff and Nancy Collins and editor/critic Paula Guran cite his intense, expressionistic early horror novels, such as Dracula in Love and Cellars as an influence on

2185-428: A notable critic of literary archetypes in science fiction, instead employs metaphysical and psychological concepts, seeking greater relevance to readers of the day. Ballard's work is considered have had a profound influence on cyberpunk's development, As evidenced by the term "Ballardian" becoming used to ascribe literary excellence amongst science fiction social circles. Ballard, along with Zelazny and others continued

2300-564: A novel in 1995 called Headcrash , like Snow Crash a satirical attack on the genre's excesses. Fittingly, it won an honor named after cyberpunk's spiritual founder, the Philip K. Dick Award . It satirized the genre in this way: ...full of young guys with no social lives, no sex lives and no hope of ever moving out of their mothers' basements ... They're total wankers and losers who indulge in Messianic fantasies about someday getting even with

2415-403: A prop assistant who was unaware of the rule for inspecting all firearms before and after any handling. Therefore, the barrel was not checked for obstructions when the time came to load it with the blank rounds. Since the bullet from the dummy round was already trapped in the barrel (a condition known as a squib load ), this caused the .44 Magnum bullet to be fired out of the barrel with virtually

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2530-423: A rock musician who is resurrected from the dead to seek vengeance against the gang who murdered him and his fiancée. Lee was fatally wounded by a prop gun during filming. As he had finished most of his scenes, the film was completed through script rewrites, a stunt double and digital effects. After Lee's death, Paramount Pictures opted out of distribution and the rights were acquired by Miramax Films . The film

2645-518: A seminal cyberpunk work in itself. Several stories in Heatseeker were particularly seminal, including Sleepwalkers , which, in just one example, probably provided the inspiration for William Gibson 's "meat puppets" in Neuromancer . Gibson acknowledged Shirley's influence in an introduction to Shirley's City Come A-Walkin . Shirley's story collection, made up of increasingly bizarre stories,

2760-434: A sense of rebellion, suggesting that one could describe it as a type of cultural revolution in science fiction. In the words of author and critic David Brin : ...a closer look [at cyberpunk authors] reveals that they nearly always portray future societies in which governments have become wimpy and pathetic ...Popular science fiction tales by Gibson, Williams, Cadigan and others do depict Orwellian accumulations of power in

2875-416: A stagnant formula. In 1986, he edited a volume of cyberpunk stories called Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology , an attempt to establish what cyberpunk was, from Sterling's perspective. In the subsequent decade, the motifs of Gibson's Neuromancer became formulaic, climaxing in the satirical extremes of Neal Stephenson 's Snow Crash in 1992. Bookending the cyberpunk era, Bethke himself published

2990-402: A term that encompassed both punk attitudes and high technology. He described the idea thus: The kids who trashed my computer; their kids were going to be Holy Terrors, combining the ethical vacuity of teenagers with a technical fluency we adults could only guess at. Further, the parents and other adult authority figures of the early 21st Century were going to be terribly ill-equipped to deal with

3105-556: A term used for a New Wave pop music movement that had just occurred in Britain, but this term did not catch on. Bethke later paraphrased Michael Swanwick 's argument for the term: "the movement writers should properly be termed neuromantics, since so much of what they were doing was clearly imitating Neuromancer ". Sterling was another writer who played a central role, often consciously, in the cyberpunk genre, variously seen as either keeping it on track, or distorting its natural path into

3220-553: Is Gurdjieff: An Introduction to His Life and Ideas (Penguin/Tarcher). He currently lives in the Vancouver Washington area with his wife, Micky Shirley. Shirley has three adult sons, twins Byron and Perry and their younger brother Julian, who also goes by "Juji". Byron is a yacht captain and yacht broker; Perry is a teacher and artist. Julian is a Bay Area-based underground rapper and producer of hip-hop, trap, chiptune and various other electronic music genres, as well as

3335-597: Is a member of the satirical "religion" Church of the SubGenius . John Shirley received several nominations and won the following awards. ——————— John Shirley wrote most of the lyrics for Blue Öyster Cult albums Heaven Forbid and Curse of the Hidden Mirror as well as the songs "Demon's Kiss" and "The Horsemen Arrive" from their soundtrack Bad Channels , and five songs from their 2020 album The Symbol Remains . Their 1972 song "Transmaniacon MC"

3450-415: Is also featured prominently in anime and manga ( Japanese cyberpunk ), with Akira , Ghost in the Shell and Cowboy Bebop being among the most notable. Cyberpunk writers tend to use elements from crime fiction —particularly hardboiled detective fiction and film noir —and postmodernist prose to describe an often nihilistic underground side of an electronic society. The genre's vision of

3565-674: Is also political satire, or spiritual allegory. E.g., Demons , in which it is discovered that industry has deliberately caused deaths by cancer as part of a vast secret program of human sacrifice. 2007 saw the release of a new story collection, Living Shadows , from Prime Books. His novel of dark urban fantasy set in a slightly futuristic New York, Bleak History , was published by Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books in 2009. In August 2011 Underland Press published In Extremis: The Most Extreme Stories of John Shirley and in January 2012 Prime Books published his near future apocalyptic political allegory,

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3680-416: Is an action-packed visual feast that also has a soul in the performance of the late Brandon Lee." The film also has a score of 71 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Reviewers praised the action and visual style. Rolling Stone called it a "dazzling fever dream of a movie"; Caryn James, writing for The New York Times , called it "a genre film of

3795-793: Is based on his book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? . Humans linked to machines are found in Pohl and Kornbluth's Wolfbane (1959) and Roger Zelazny 's Creatures of Light and Darkness (1968). In 1994, scholar Brian Stonehill suggested that Thomas Pynchon 's 1973 novel Gravity's Rainbow "not only curses but precurses what we now glibly dub cyberspace." Other important predecessors include Alfred Bester 's two most celebrated novels, The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination , as well as Vernor Vinge 's novella True Names . Science-fiction writer David Brin describes cyberpunk as "the finest free promotion campaign ever waged on behalf of science fiction". It may not have attracted

3910-417: Is claimed that, for instance, cyberpunk depicts fantasies that ultimately empower masculinity using fragmentary and decentered aesthetic that culminate in a masculine genre populated by male outlaws. Critics also note the absence of any reference to Africa or black characters in the quintessential cyberpunk film Blade Runner , while other films reinforce stereotypes. Minnesota writer Bruce Bethke coined

4025-499: Is considered by many to be the first cyberpunk novel with many of the tropes commonly associated with the genre, some five years before the term was popularized by Dozois. William Gibson with his novel Neuromancer (1984) is arguably the most famous writer connected with the term cyberpunk. He emphasized style, a fascination with surfaces, and atmosphere over traditional science-fiction tropes. Regarded as ground-breaking and sometimes as "the archetypal cyberpunk work", Neuromancer

4140-705: Is dedicated to Lee and his fiancée, Eliza Hutton. The Crow premiered in Santa Monica on May 10, 1994, and was released in the United States on May 13, 1994, by Dimension Films . The film received positive reviews for its style and Lee's performance. It grossed $ 94 million on a $ 23 million budget and has gained a cult following . The success led to a media franchise that includes the sequels The Crow: City of Angels (1996), The Crow: Salvation (2000), and The Crow: Wicked Prayer (2005). The sequels, which mostly featured different characters and none of

4255-415: Is killed by criminals. Ashe is resurrected as a new Crow. The character of Sarah Mohr (now played by Mia Kirshner ) reappears in this film and assists Ashe. The film also features Iggy Pop , who, according to the booklet insert for the film's soundtrack, was the producer's first choice for Funboy in the first Crow movie, but he was unable to commit due to his recording schedule. In addition, it also featured

4370-474: Is more of forging ahead, looking at the new global culture. It is a culture that does not exist right now, so the Japanese concept of a cyberpunk future, seems just as valid as a Western one, especially as Western cyberpunk often incorporates many Japanese elements." William Gibson is now a frequent visitor to Japan, and he came to see that many of his visions of Japan have become a reality: Modern Japan simply

4485-767: Is praised for its "realist" exploration of cybernetic and artificial intelligence ideas and ethics. Dick's protege and friend K. W. Jeter wrote a novel called Dr. Adder in 1972 that, Dick lamented, might have been more influential in the field had it been able to find a publisher at that time. It was not published until 1984, after which Jeter made it the first book in a trilogy, followed by The Glass Hammer (1985) and Death Arms (1987). Jeter wrote other standalone cyberpunk novels before going on to write three authorized sequels to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? , named Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human (1995), Blade Runner 3: Replicant Night (1996), and Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon . The term "cyberpunk" first appeared as

4600-457: Is the terrible ease with which we modern Americans have learned to look away from pain and suffering. The opening line of his novel "Demons" states the theme succinctly: “It’s amazing what you can get used to.” . . .Maybe the best story in this superb collection is a rapt little piece called “Skeeter Junkie,” in which a young heroin addict first begins to enjoy the feeling of the mosquito feeding on his arm, then starts to identify with it and then, as

4715-402: Is walking home and takes her to an abandoned church with Myca and Top Dollar, who takes Shelly's ring. Eric is alerted to her plight by the crow and rushes to rescue her, but he is ambushed by Grange who wounds the crow, rendering Eric vulnerable. Albrecht arrives and kills Grange, while Myca attempts to take the crow for its immortality; it claws her eyes out, causing her to fall to her death from

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4830-652: The A Song Called Youth cyberpunk trilogy for Warner Books, re-released as an omnibus in 2012 by Prime Books. 2012 saw his noir-flavored novel of apocalypse, Everything Is Broken released by Prime Books. In 2013 PM Press released Shirley's New Taboos . In October 2013 HarperCollins/Witness released his novel about Conan Doyle in the afterlife, Doyle After Death ; Skyhorse Publications brought out his historical novel about Wyatt Earp , Wyatt in Wichita , in August 2014. Shirley's collaboration with rock musician Mark Tremonti , an adaptation of Tremonti's rock opera A DYING MACHINE,

4945-656: The British rule of Hong Kong , it was an area neglected by both the British and Qing administrations, embodying elements of liberalism in a dystopian context. Portrayals of East Asia and Asians in Western cyberpunk have been criticized as Orientalist and promoting racist tropes playing on American and European fears of East Asian dominance; this has been referred to as "techno-Orientalism". Cyberpunk can be intended to disquiet readers and call them to action. It often expresses

5060-646: The Keanu Reaves movie, the best-seller BioShock: Rapture (Tor, 2011), a novel providing a prequel to the BioShock video game story, and Halo: Broken Circle . He also wrote the apocalyptic, politically charged novel, The Other End which, according to the author's website, takes the apocalypse away from the Christian Right and gives Judgment Day to Liberals to do with as they please. This reflects Shirley's tendency to create fantasy entertainment which

5175-439: The splatterpunk movement in horror, and the subsequent " bizarro " movement. Appreciation of John Shirley as an author of dark fiction was amplified by a January 2008 The New York Times review, by critic Terrence Rafferty , of Shirley's story-collection Living Shadows which said in part: It's a greatest-hits album spanning a few decades of astonishingly consistent and rigorously horrifying work. . . Shirley's great subject

5290-494: The title of a short story by Bruce Bethke , written in 1980 and published in Amazing Stories in 1983. The name was picked up by Gardner Dozois , editor of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine , and popularized in his editorials. Bethke says he made two lists of words, one for technology, one for troublemakers, and experimented with combining them variously into compound words, consciously attempting to coin

5405-657: The " Stronger " music video, and Lupe Fiasco , whose album Tetsuo & Youth is named after Tetsuo Shima. The popular bike from the film, Kaneda's Motorbike, appears in Steven Spielberg ' s film Ready Player One , and CD Projekt 's video game Cyberpunk 2077 . Ghost in the Shell (1995) influenced a number of prominent filmmakers, most notably the Wachowskis in The Matrix (1999) and its sequels. The Matrix series took several concepts from

5520-477: The "real punks", but it did ensnare many new readers, and it provided the sort of movement that postmodern literary critics found alluring. Cyberpunk made science fiction more attractive to academics, argues Brin; in addition, it made science fiction more profitable to Hollywood and to the visual arts generally. Although the "self-important rhetoric and whines of persecution" on the part of cyberpunk fans were irritating at worst and humorous at best, Brin declares that

5635-646: The "rebels did shake things up. We owe them a debt." Fredric Jameson considers cyberpunk the "supreme literary expression if not of postmodernism , then of late capitalism itself". Cyberpunk further inspired many later writers to incorporate cyberpunk ideas into their own works, such as George Alec Effinger 's When Gravity Fails . Wired magazine, created by Louis Rossetto and Jane Metcalfe, mixes new technology, art, literature, and current topics in order to interest today's cyberpunk fans, which Paula Yoo claims "proves that hardcore hackers, multimedia junkies, cyberpunks and cellular freaks are poised to take over

5750-548: The 1982 film Burst City , and the 1989 film Tetsuo: The Iron Man . According to Paul Gravett , when Akira began to be published, cyberpunk literature had not yet been translated into Japanese, Otomo has distinct inspirations such as Mitsuteru Yokoyama 's manga series Tetsujin 28-go (1956–1966) and Moebius . In contrast to Western cyberpunk which has roots in New Wave science fiction literature, Japanese cyberpunk has roots in underground music culture, specifically

5865-474: The Japanese punk subculture that arose from the Japanese punk music scene in the 1970s. The filmmaker Sogo Ishii introduced this subculture to Japanese cinema with the punk film Panic High School (1978) and the punk biker film Crazy Thunder Road (1980), both portraying the rebellion and anarchy associated with punk, and the latter featuring a punk biker gang aesthetic. Ishii's punk films paved

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5980-477: The Thrill Kill Kult make cameo appearances in the film on stage in the nightclub below Top Dollar's headquarters. The score consists of original, mostly orchestral music, with some electronic and guitar elements, written for the film by Graeme Revell . In 1996, a sequel was released, called The Crow: City of Angels . In this film, Vincent Pérez plays Ashe Corven, who, along with his son Danny,

6095-880: The United States and Canada, and $ 43 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $ 93.7 million against its budget of $ 23 million. It ranked at number 24 for all films released in the US in 1994, the 24th highest-grossing film worldwide for 1994 and number 10 for R-rated films released that year. In Europe, the film grossed £1,245,403 in the United Kingdom (where it was 18-rated ), and sold 4,604,115 tickets in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. In Seoul, South Korea , it sold 83,126 tickets. The Crow has an approval rating of 87% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 75 reviews and an average rating of 7.2/10. The critical consensus states: "Filled with style and dark, lurid energy, The Crow

6210-435: The bell tower. Top Dollar retreats to the church roof with Sarah, where he fights and badly wounds Eric. Eric transfers Shelly's pain into Top Dollar, causing him to stumble off the roof and be impaled on a gargoyle , killing him. Sarah and a wounded Albrecht are recovered from the church, while a pained Eric goes to Shelly's grave where her spirit arrives to comfort him and return his body to rest. Sometime later, Sarah visits

6325-406: The best version of a comic book universe he had seen. McCarthy agreed, calling it "one of the most effective live-actioners ever derived from a comic strip". Critics felt that the soundtrack complemented this visual style, calling it blistering, edgy and boisterous. Graeme Revell was praised for his "moody" score; Howe said that it "drapes the story in a postmodern pall." Negative reviews of

6440-408: The bullets from live rounds, dumping the powder charge but not the primer, then reinserting the bullets. Witnesses reported that two weeks before Lee's death they saw an unsupervised actor pulling the trigger on the gun while it was loaded with the powderless but primed round. Having not removed the primer, the primer could detonate with enough energy to launch a bullet and lodge it in the barrel. In

6555-580: The drugs ooze through his veins, somehow becomes it and finally uses the “exquisite” flying bloodsucker to transport him to the apartment of his comely but standoffish downstairs neighbor. It’s a horror story, I guess, but it’s also funny, weirdly erotic and, in a way that horror almost never is, tragic. Shirley's cyberpunk novels are City Come A-Walkin , the A Song Called Youth trilogy and Stormland . Avant-slipstream critic Larry McCaffery called him "a postmodern Edgar Allan Poe." Bruce Sterling has cited Shirley's early story collection Heatseeker as being

6670-622: The edge of society in generally dystopic futures where daily life was impacted by rapid technological change, an ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information, and invasive modification of the human body. Cyberpunk plots often involve conflict between artificial intelligence , hackers , and megacorporations , and tend to be set in a near-future Earth , rather than in the far-future settings or galactic vistas found in novels such as Isaac Asimov 's Foundation or Frank Herbert 's Dune . The settings are usually post-industrial dystopias but tend to feature extraordinary cultural ferment and

6785-411: The fatal scene, which called for the revolver to be actually fired at Lee from a distance of 12–15 feet, the dummy cartridges were exchanged for blank rounds , which feature a live powder charge and primer, but no bullet, thus allowing the gun to be fired without the risk of an actual projectile. As the production company had sent the firearms specialist home early, responsibility for the guns was given to

6900-483: The film Blade Runner was adapted) is also seen by some as prefiguring the movement. Blade Runner can be seen as a quintessential example of the cyberpunk style and theme. Video games , board games , and tabletop role-playing games , such as Cyberpunk 2020 and Shadowrun , often feature storylines that are heavily influenced by cyberpunk writing and movies. Beginning in the early 1990s, some trends in fashion and music were also labeled as cyberpunk. Cyberpunk

7015-483: The film due to Lee's death. O'Barr later remarked that losing Lee was like losing his fiancée all over again, and he regretted ever writing the comic in the first place. The film opened at number one in the United States in 1,573 theaters with $ 11,774,332 and averaging $ 7,485 per theater, making it Miramax's biggest ever opening. Some industry sources believed that Miramax overstated the weekend gross by as much as $ 1 million. The film ultimately grossed $ 50,693,129 in

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7130-502: The film were generally similar in theme to the positive ones but said that the interesting and "OK" special effects did not make up for the "superficial" plot, "badly-written" screenplay and "one-dimensional" characters. The Crow is mentioned in Empire ' s 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time; it ranked at number 468. It has since become a cult film . The original soundtrack album for The Crow features songs from

7245-478: The film with Shirley and producer Jeff Most , turning down a significant offer from New Line Cinema in the process. O'Barr oversaw three different script treatments by Shirley and Most before directly collaborating on the first two drafts of the screenplay. Shirley penned the third and fourth draft by himself which awarded him screenplay credit by the Writers Guild of America . Most claimed to have written

7360-561: The film, and was a chart-topping album. It included work by The Cure (their song, "Burn", became the film's main theme ), The Jesus and Mary Chain , Rage Against the Machine and Helmet , among many others. In Peter Hook 's memoir Substance: Inside New Order , Hook relates that New Order were approached to provide the soundtrack for the film, with a cover of " Love Will Tear Us Apart ", their hit as Joy Division , citing parallels between Eric's resurrection and New Order's formation after

7475-613: The film, including the Matrix digital rain , which was inspired by the opening credits of Ghost in the Shell and a sushi magazine the wife of the senior designer of the animation, Simon Witheley, had in the kitchen at the time., and the way characters access the Matrix through holes in the back of their necks. Other parallels have been drawn to James Cameron 's Avatar , Steven Spielberg 's A.I. Artificial Intelligence , and Jonathan Mostow 's Surrogates . James Cameron cited Ghost in

7590-400: The film; Julien Temple being Most's top choice. Australian filmmaker Alex Proyas was hired to direct the film. Paramount Pictures picked up the distribution rights and slotted an August 1993 release date. River Phoenix and Christian Slater were early considerations for the role of Eric Draven . Shirley and Most pushed for Slater while Pressman wanted River Phoenix. Brandon Lee

7705-410: The final appearance of Thuy Trang . The band Deftones can be seen playing live in a festival scene and they contributed the song "Teething" to the soundtrack. The film received mostly negative reviews. The Crow: Stairway to Heaven was a 1998 Canadian television series created by Bryce Zabel and starring Mark Dacascos in the lead role as Eric Draven. The third film, The Crow: Salvation ,

7820-478: The first generation of teenagers who grew up truly "speaking computer". Afterward, Dozois began using this term in his own writing, most notably in a 1984 Washington Post article where he said "About the closest thing here to a self-willed esthetic 'school' would be the purveyors of bizarre hard-edged, high-tech stuff, who have on occasion been referred to as 'cyberpunks' — Sterling, Gibson, Shiner, Cadigan, Bear." Also in 1984, William Gibson's novel Neuromancer

7935-534: The genre has grown steadily since Blade Runner . Several of Philip K. Dick's works have been adapted to the silver screen. The films Johnny Mnemonic (1995) and New Rose Hotel (1998), both based on short stories by William Gibson, flopped commercially and critically. Other cyberpunk films include RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), Hardware (1990), The Lawnmower Man (1992), 12 Monkeys (1995), Hackers (1995), and Strange Days (1995). Some cyberpunk films have been described as tech-noir ,

8050-490: The graves and the crow returns Shelly's ring to her. Michael Berryman filmed scenes as the Skull Cowboy, Eric's spirit guide, but his scenes were cut from the finished film. Chad Stahelski was Brandon Lee's stunt double in several scenes. James O'Barr wrote what would become The Crow as a means to cope with the unexpected death of his fiancée, who was killed by a drunk driver. The first meeting O'Barr had with

8165-544: The hospital, but she eventually dies from her injuries. A narration states the legend of a crow that carries souls to the land of the dead; if the person died in tragic circumstances, the crow can resurrect their restless spirit to set things right. One year later, Shelly's and Eric's graves are visited by Sarah, a young girl the pair cared for due to her absent mother. A crow lands on Eric's gravestone and taps on it, resurrecting him. Disoriented and distressed, Eric returns to his ravaged loft apartment and experiences flashbacks of

8280-642: The landscape of cyberpunk Los Angeles in Blade Runner to be "Hong Kong on a very bad day". The streetscapes of the Ghost in the Shell film were based on Hong Kong. Its director Mamoru Oshii felt that Hong Kong's strange and chaotic streets where "old and new exist in confusing relationships" fit the theme of the film well. Hong Kong's Kowloon Walled City is particularly notable for its disorganized hyper-urbanization and breakdown in traditional urban planning to be an inspiration to cyberpunk landscapes. During

8395-421: The line between actual and virtual reality . A typical trope in such work is a direct connection between the human brain and computer systems. Cyberpunk settings are dystopias with corruption, computers, and computer networks. The economic and technological state of Japan is a regular theme in the cyberpunk literature of the 1980s. Of Japan's influence on the genre, William Gibson said, "Modern Japan simply

8510-465: The most successful cyberpunk films. Newer cyberpunk media includes Blade Runner 2049 (2017), a sequel to the original 1982 film; Dredd (2012), which was not a sequel to the original movie; Ghost in the Shell (2017), a live-action adaptation of the original manga ; Alita: Battle Angel (2019), based on the 1990s Japanese manga Battle Angel Alita ; the 2018 Netflix TV series Altered Carbon , based on Richard K. Morgan 's 2002 novel of

8625-401: The movie omits the religious and mythical elements of Dick's original novel (e.g. empathy boxes and Wilbur Mercer), it falls more strictly within the cyberpunk genre than the novel does. William Gibson would later reveal that upon first viewing the film, he was surprised at how the look of this film matched his vision for Neuromancer , a book he was then working on. The film's tone has since been

8740-521: The murders: A gang of men—Tin Tin, Funboy, T-Bird, and Skank—targeted the pair, because they were protesting forced evictions in their apartment building which the gang's leader, ruthless crime boss Top Dollar, intended to seize. Realizing that any injuries he suffers are immediately healed, Eric dons black-and-white face paint and sets out to avenge himself and Shelly, guided by the crow. The crow leads Eric to Tin Tin, whom Eric stabs to death. He next travels to

8855-753: The next century, but nearly always clutched in the secretive hands of a wealthy or corporate elite . Cyberpunk stories have also been seen as fictional forecasts of the evolution of the Internet . The earliest descriptions of a global communications network came long before the World Wide Web entered popular awareness, though not before traditional science-fiction writers such as Arthur C. Clarke and some social commentators such as James Burke began predicting that such networks would eventually form. Some observers cite that cyberpunk tends to marginalize sectors of society such as women and people of colour. It

8970-552: The novel Everything Is Broken . His novel about Arthur Conan Doyle in the afterlife, Doyle After Death , was released by HarperCollins/Witness in October 2013. Shirley's apocalyptic and surreal novel High , based on his early novel Three-Ring Psychus , has been re-released by Start Books as an e-book ; His newest story collection is Feverish Stars (March 2020). In June 2020 his fantasy novel Sorcerer of Atlantis will be released by Hippocampus. Shirley's work ranges in tone from

9085-466: The original cast members, were unable to match the success of the first film. A reboot of The Crow was released in 2024, which was a critical and commercial failure. On Devil's Night , in a crime-ravaged and decrepit Detroit , a young woman, Shelly Webster, is raped and seriously wounded while her rock musician fiancé Eric Draven is shot and thrown to his death from the window of their loft apartment. Police Sergeant Daryl Albrecht accompanies Shelly to

9200-420: The other sequels, it had a poor critical reception. The Crow: 2037 was a planned sequel written and scheduled to be directed by Rob Zombie in the late 1990s; however, it was never made. On April 1, 2022, a new attempt at a remake was announced by The Hollywood Reporter , with Bill Skarsgård starring as Eric, Rupert Sanders directing, and Edward R. Pressman and Malcolm Gray co-producing. Days later,

9315-522: The pawn shop where Tin Tin had pawned Shelly's engagement ring. Eric recovers the ring and blows up the shop, but spares the owner Gideon so he can alert Top Dollar's men that Eric is coming for them. Albrecht begins investigating the apparent vigilante disturbances while Eric finds Funboy taking drugs with Sarah's estranged drug addict mother, Darla. He gives Funboy a fatal overdose and purges the drugs from Darla's body, telling her that Sarah needs her. Eric visits Albrecht and confirms his suspicions regarding

9430-505: The popular development of "realism" within the genre Delany's 1968 novel Nova , considered a forerunner of cyberpunk literature, includes neural implants, a now popular cyberpunk trope for human computer interfaces. It also influenced one of the genres most well known cyberpunk novels, William Gibson 's Neuromancer . Philip K. Dick's novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? , first published in 1968, shares common dystopian themes with later works by Gibson and Sterling, and

9545-471: The rock album The Screaming Geezers ; vocals and lyrics by John Shirley. Shirley performs regularly in the Portland, Oregon rock scene. 2014 saw the release of Shirley's first historical novel, Wyatt in Wichita , a novel of the young Wyatt Earp. Other recent novels are Halo: Broken Circle , Doyle After Death and a novelization of Mark Tremonti 's science-fiction rock opera, A Dying Machine . Shirley

9660-419: The room. A scene filmed two weeks before Lee's had called for the same gun to be shown in close-up. Revolvers often use dummy cartridges fitted with bullets, but no powder or primer , during close-ups as they look more realistic than blank rounds which have no bullet. Instead of purchasing commercial dummy cartridges, the film's prop crew, hampered by time and money constraints, created their own by pulling

9775-536: The same force as if the gun had been loaded with a live round, and it struck Lee in the abdomen, mortally wounding him. After Lee's death, the producers were faced with the decision of whether or not to continue with the film. Lee had completed most of his scenes for the film and was scheduled to shoot for only three more days. The rest of the cast and crew, except for Ernie Hudson, whose brother-in-law had just died, stayed in Wilmington. Paramount Pictures , which

9890-415: The same name ; and the video game Cyberpunk 2077 (2020) and original net animation (ONA) miniseries Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (2022), both based on R. Talsorian Games 's 1988 tabletop role-playing game Cyberpunk . Lawrence Person has attempted to define the content and ethos of the cyberpunk literary movement stating: Classic cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners who lived on

10005-537: The site also reported that FKA Twigs had been cast as Shelly. In July 2022, production on the reboot was reportedly underway in Prague , Czech Republic . By August 26, 2022, Danny Huston was cast as Vincent Roeg. On September 16, 2022, the film wrapped production. The film was theatrically released on August 23, 2024, by Lionsgate Films , in the United States. The Crow was first released on VHS and LaserDisc multiple times between 1994 and 1998 in addition to

10120-496: The staple of many cyberpunk movies, such as The Matrix trilogy (1999–2003), which uses a wide variety of cyberpunk elements. A sequel to Blade Runner was released in 2017. The TV series Max Headroom (1987) is an iconic cyberpunk work, taking place in a futuristic dystopia ruled by an oligarchy of television networks. Computer hacking played a central role in many of the story lines. Max Headroom has been called "the first cyberpunk television series". The number of films in

10235-733: The suicide of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis . However, New Order frontman Bernard Sumner declined, stating that they were too busy with their album Republic to commit to another project. James O'Barr , creator of the original comic book series, was a big fan of Joy Division and had named the characters Sergeant Albrecht and Captain Hook after bandmates Sumner (who was also known as Bernard Albrecht early in his career) and Hook. Several groups contributed covers. Nine Inch Nails rendered Joy Division's "Dead Souls", Rollins Band covered Suicide 's "Ghost Rider" and Pantera performed Poison Idea 's "The Badge". The bands Medicine and My Life with

10350-574: The supporting cast. Production began on The Crow in February 1993 in Wilmington, North Carolina and was scheduled to last 54 days. On March 31, 1993, at EUE Screen Gems Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina , Lee was filming a scene where his character, Eric, is shot after witnessing the beating and rape of his fiancée. Actor Michael Massee's character Funboy fires a .44 Magnum Smith & Wesson Model 629 revolver at Lee as he walks into

10465-581: The surreal to the grittily naturalistic to the nightmarish. He is also a songwriter and singer, having fronted numerous punk bands, including the New York City band Obsession, who were recorded by Celluloid Records . He has written lyrics for Blue Öyster Cult , such as several songs on the album Heaven Forbid . In 2013 Black October Records released a two-CD compilation of John Shirley's own recordings, Broken Mirror Glass: The John Shirley Anthology – 1978–2012 ...In 2020 Reprehensible Records released

10580-478: The term in 1983 for his short story " Cyberpunk ", which was published in an issue of Amazing Science Fiction Stories . The term was quickly appropriated as a label to be applied to the works of William Gibson , Bruce Sterling , Pat Cadigan and others. Of these, Sterling became the movement's chief ideologue, thanks to his fanzine Cheap Truth . John Shirley wrote articles on Sterling and Rucker's significance. John Brunner 's 1975 novel The Shockwave Rider

10695-474: The time of writing the novel Gibson did not know the location of Chiba and had no idea how perfectly it fit his vision in some ways. The exposure to cyberpunk ideas and fiction in the 1980s has allowed it to seep into the Japanese culture. Cyberpunk anime and manga draw upon a futuristic vision which has elements in common with Western science fiction and therefore have received wide international acceptance outside Japan. "The conceptualization involved in cyberpunk

10810-417: The use of technology in ways never anticipated by its original inventors ("the street finds its own uses for things"). Much of the genre's atmosphere echoes film noir , and written works in the genre often use techniques from detective fiction . There are sources who view that cyberpunk has shifted from a literary movement to a mode of science fiction due to the limited number of writers and its transition to

10925-510: The vigilante's identity. Albrecht tells Eric that he stayed with Shelly until she died, witnessing the thirty hours of suffering she experienced. Eric touches Albrecht, absorbing the pain Shelly felt. Later, Eric saves Sarah from being hit by a car, revealing to her that he has returned. Eric next targets T-Bird, killing him in an explosion. The following morning, Sarah and Darla reconcile and Sarah reunites with Eric at his apartment. Top Dollar holds

11040-481: The way for Otomo's seminal cyberpunk work Akira . Cyberpunk themes are widely visible in anime and manga. In Japan , where cosplay is popular and not only teenagers display such fashion styles, cyberpunk has been accepted and its influence is widespread. William Gibson's Neuromancer, whose influence dominated the early cyberpunk movement, was also set in Chiba , one of Japan's largest industrial areas, although at

11155-547: The whimsically titled Really, Really, Really, Really Weird Stories has developed a cult status. William Gibson, the author of Neuromancer , collaborated with Shirley on short stories—as did fellow cyberpunks Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker . Shirley's lyricism, wealth of ideas and imagination, crossover pioneering, and street-level honesty have been praised by other writers including Clive Barker , Peter Straub , Roger Zelazny , Marc Laidlaw , and A. A. Attanasio . His more surreal work, as in A Splendid Chaos , showed how it

11270-548: The widescreen DVD on February 3, 1998. The two-disc DVD was released on March 20, 2001, as part of the Miramax/Dimension Collector's Series. On October 18, 2011, The Crow was released on Blu-ray through Lionsgate Pictures who also re-released the DVD format on August 17, 2012. In Japan, the movie was remastered in 4K for a special edition in 2016, although the film's final resolution was capped at 1080p;

11385-481: The world through almost-magical computer skills, but whose actual use of the Net amounts to dialing up the scatophilia forum and downloading a few disgusting pictures. You know, cyberpunks. Primary figures in the cyberpunk movement include William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, Bruce Bethke, Pat Cadigan , Rudy Rucker , and John Shirley . Philip K. Dick (author of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? , from which

11500-407: The world". The film Blade Runner (1982) is set in 2019 in a dystopian future in which manufactured beings called replicants are slaves used on space colonies and are legal prey on Earth to various bounty hunters who "retire" (kill) them. Although Blade Runner was largely unsuccessful in its first theatrical release, it found a viewership in the home video market and became a cult film . Since

11615-574: Was awarded the Hugo , Nebula , and Philip K. Dick Awards. Count Zero (1986) and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988) followed after Gibson's popular debut novel. According to the Jargon File , "Gibson's near-total ignorance of computers and the present-day hacker culture enabled him to speculate about the role of computers and hackers in the future in ways hackers have since found both irritatingly naïve and tremendously stimulating." Early on, cyberpunk

11730-604: Was completed in June 2018. Besides having written numerous books Shirley was lead singer of the punk band Sado-Nation , in 1978-79; he was lead singer of the post-punk funk-rock band Obsession, on Celluloid Records, while living in New York City and Paris, France, in the 1980s, and was later in the band the Panther Moderns. He is currently performing with The Screaming Geezers. Shirley has also written 23 song lyrics recorded by Blue Öyster Cult . Shirley's one nonfiction book

11845-563: Was cyberpunk. The Japanese themselves knew it and delighted in it. I remember my first glimpse of Shibuya , when one of the young Tokyo journalists who had taken me there, his face drenched with the light of a thousand media-suns—all that towering, animated crawl of commercial information—said, "You see? You see? It is Blade Runner town." And it was. It so evidently was. Akira (1982 manga) and its 1988 anime film adaptation have influenced numerous works in animation, comics, film, music, television and video games. Akira has been cited as

11960-400: Was cyberpunk." Cyberpunk is often set in urbanized, artificial landscapes, and "city lights, receding" was used by Gibson as one of the genre's first metaphors for cyberspace and virtual reality. The cityscapes of Hong Kong has had major influences in the urban backgrounds, ambiance and settings in many cyberpunk works such as Blade Runner and Shadowrun . Ridley Scott envisioned

12075-1108: Was hailed as a radical departure from science-fiction standards and a new manifestation of vitality. Shortly thereafter, however, some critics arose to challenge its status as a revolutionary movement. These critics said that the science fiction New Wave of the 1960s was much more innovative as far as narrative techniques and styles were concerned. Furthermore, while Neuromancer ' s narrator may have had an unusual "voice" for science fiction, much older examples can be found: Gibson's narrative voice, for example, resembles that of an updated Raymond Chandler , as in his novel The Big Sleep (1939). Others noted that almost all traits claimed to be uniquely cyberpunk could in fact be found in older writers' works—often citing J. G. Ballard , Philip K. Dick , Harlan Ellison , Stanisław Lem , Samuel R. Delany , and even William S. Burroughs . For example, Philip K. Dick's works contain recurring themes of social decay, artificial intelligence, paranoia, and blurred lines between objective and subjective realities. The influential cyberpunk movie Blade Runner (1982)

12190-457: Was initially interested in distributing The Crow theatrically (originally a direct-to-video feature), opted out of involvement due to delays in filming and some controversy over the violent content being inappropriate given Lee's death. However, Miramax picked it up with the intention of releasing it in theatres and injected a further $ 8 million to complete the production, taking its budget to approximately $ 23 million. The cast and crew then took

12305-404: Was possible to describe the indescribable with a paradoxical believability and impeccable internal logic no matter how bizarre the subject matter. Shirley's personal experiences as a recovering drug addict and punk rocker brought verisimilitude to his darker, urban-tinctured writing. In recent years Shirley has written a number of "tie-in novels" and novelizations, including Constantine , based on

12420-416: Was published, delivering a glimpse of a future encompassed by what became an archetype of cyberpunk "virtual reality", with the human mind being fed light-based worldscapes through a computer interface. Some, perhaps ironically including Bethke himself, argued at the time that the writers whose style Gibson's books epitomized should be called "Neuromantics", a pun on the name of the novel plus " New Romantics ",

12535-475: Was released in 2000. Directed by Bharat Nalluri , it stars Eric Mabius , Kirsten Dunst , Fred Ward , Jodi Lyn O'Keefe and William Atherton . It is loosely based on Poppy Z. Brite 's novel The Lazarus Heart . After its distributor cancelled the intended theatrical release due to The Crow: City of Angels ' negative critical reception, The Crow: Salvation was released directly to video with mixed reviews. The fourth film, The Crow: Wicked Prayer ,

12650-461: Was released in 2005. Directed by Lance Mungia , it stars Edward Furlong , David Boreanaz , Tara Reid , Tito Ortiz , Dennis Hopper , Emmanuelle Chriqui and Danny Trejo . It was inspired by Norman Partridge 's novel of the same title. It had a one-week theatrical première on June 3, 2005, at AMC Pacific Place Theatre in Seattle , Washington, before being released to video on July 19, 2005. Like

12765-399: Was rewritten, and the apartment scene remade using computer graphics from an earlier scene of Lee. A character from the original comic book called Skull Cowboy was originally planned to be part of the adaptation and even had scenes filmed. He acted as a guide for Eric Draven between the worlds of the dead and the living. He was set to be played by Michael Berryman , but the role was cut from

12880-579: Was suggested to play Draven, but O'Barr was unconvinced fearing he wouldn't be suited for the material. However, Lee won O'Barr over and was given the role shortly thereafter. Lee dropped 20 pounds to portray Draven and worked closely with the crew to shape the film, co- choreographing his action sequences with Jeff Imada , performing most of his stunts, and removing a subplot due to its Asian stereotyping. Rochelle Davis, Ernie Hudson , Michael Wincott , Bai Ling , Sofia Shinas , Michael Massee , David Patrick Kelly , Tony Todd , and Jon Polito rounded out

12995-480: Was the TV series Max Headroom from 1987, playing in a futuristic dystopia ruled by an oligarchy of television networks, and where computer hacking played a central role in many story lines. The films Johnny Mnemonic (1995) and New Rose Hotel (1998), both based upon short stories by William Gibson, flopped commercially and critically, while The Matrix trilogy (1999–2003) and Judge Dredd (1995) were some of

13110-459: Was the inspiration for Shirley's first novel, Transmaniacon . John Shirley's current band, which performs in and around Portland, Oregon, is called The Screaming Geezers. The Crow (1994 film) The Crow is a 1994 American superhero film directed by Alex Proyas and written by David J. Schow and John Shirley , based on the 1989 comic book series by James O'Barr . It stars Brandon Lee in his final film role, as Eric Draven ,

13225-405: Was this Lee's best film, but it was better than any of his father's . Critics generally thought that this would have been a breakthrough film for Lee, although Berardinelli disagreed. The changes made to the film after Lee's death were noted by reviewers, most of whom saw them as an improvement. Howe said that it had been transformed into something compelling. Berardinelli, although terming it

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