'The Crow 3: Resurrection' is an unproduced screenplay written by Steven E. de Souza, the
writer of 'Commando', the first two 'Die Hards, 'The Running Man' and 'Beverly Hills Cop 3',
amongst many other popular titles. Director Oliver Stone, back in 1989,
was taking Tae Kwon Do lessons by actor and martial artist Phillip Rhee.
Rhee's 1980 representation of the United States against the South Korean team in the championships
of the Asia Games would form the basis of his screenplay for the 1989 film 'Best of the Best.'
Rhee would develop a successful career as an actor,
producer and screenwriter in the genre and would eventually be introduced to Stone and in turn
secure a 3-picture deal with Warner Brothers. Oliver Stone meanwhile had made contact with
de Souza about collaborating on a 'smart action movie', the type at which the writer excelled at.
Stone and Rhee had developed a premise, but in a field saturated with vehicles for Steven Seagal
and Jean Claude Van-Damme they looked to de Souza give the traditional genre tropes a fresh spin.
The result was a screenplay called 'Ballistic' about an undercover cop who is double-crossed,
shot and left for dead. The hero eventually emerges from a coma five years later, out of
his mind, out of control and out for revenge as - dressed in hospital pyjamas throughout - he
uses martial arts to kick and chop through his way through all those who left him for dead.
Stone was happy with the script, described as a dark comedy with elements of 'Rain Man' and
'Splash' and was on board as producer. He was looking to bring in an action
director from Hong Kong, and that, de Souza says, is how John Woo arrived in America.
As the project was honed and perfected, Van Damme's people would instead snag Woo's services
and this would result in the movie 'Hard Target'. 'Ballistic' now lost its initial momentum, Oliver
Stone and Warner Brothers would part ways over a disagreement and that, now seemed to be that.
Another friend of Stone was Edward Pressman, the rights holder to the Crow Film franchise,
he would read the 'Ballistic' screenplay and realise that with some changes,
this could make for a great Crow movie...
De Souza would speak to Jason Jenkins at 'Bloody Disgusting dot com', and explain how a similar
sequence of events had transpired during the creation of 'Die Hard 2: Die Harder.'
That screenplay had originated in a script called '58 Minutes' -- Based on the Walter Wager novel of
the same name -- about an heroic air traffic controller who was forced to deal with a
terrorist plot that saw the runway lights of JFK and every nearby airport cut until the terrorists'
demands were met. The hero then had 58 minutes until the first plane, carrying his daughter,
would run out of fuel and crash.. The screenplay had sat at 20th Century Fox unproduced,
and so with a few modifications and the switching of the central character to John McLane,
the script became a ready-made Die Hard sequel. For a third Crow movie, Pressman encouraged de
Souza to do the same thing again.. And Phillip Rhee,
who was to star in 'Ballistic' would more than likely keep his lead role in this new movie.
De Souza would spend a few days switching things around to retro-fit his screenplay
into a rebooted Crow tale. The Crow 3: Resurrection script
opens with a Crow flying over the twisted maze of a Dark Port City.
A woman's voiceover tells us that, ''There's a legend that when a body dies,
a crow comes to escort its soul to the next world. If death has come through violence
or treachery, and if the soul is pure, sometimes the crow can return the soul to
its body so that Justice can be done... even from beyond the grave. But the legend never
answers one question: What happens when the soul dies... but the body doesn't?''
The opening scene begins at night on a pier as a cargo ship passes into frame.
We see four well-dressed gangsters named Terrell, Acer, Bruno and Morgan.
A high-level drug deal is taking place, undercover cops quietly observe from close range.
We're introduced to John Kato, he's a San-Francisco cop who together with
his partner Sarah Weller, is part of the plain-clothes stakeout.
As they lose sight of the criminals, we see that Kato is quite the maverick as he jumps
aboard the ship to make the arrest. Gun fire breaks out on all sides,
Kato uses martial arts to kick, chop and punch his way through smugglers and bad guys.
Terrell flees the scene in a car but Kato leaps and lands atop the car,
he and Terrell fight as the car teeters over a mountain edge.
Terrell manages to escape with the help of a man named Byron.
During the battle, Kato's hotel key fell from his pocket and is now in the possession of
Terrell who makes plans to get even. We then cut to the hotel in question,
to a lavish outdoor wedding ceremony as Kato and his bride Anne marry.
Kato says 'I do' and the newlyweds kiss. We see Sarah amongst the guests,
she's happy for them but we can see that she clearly has hidden feelings for her partner.
After the ceremony everybody is enjoying the wedding celebrations
when, suddenly - with a Roar, a helicopter rises into view from behind the hill. Everyone turns.
Beside the pilot is Byron. And, behind him, using the seatback for a sniper's rest,
is Terrell. He is already aiming an assault rifle.
The bullets from the aircraft rip into the people below. Bones and glass
shatter equally. White table-clothes drench in the red of blood and wine.
Kato reacts, tries to save guests, he's too late to save his wife who is hit with bullets.
Kato runs toward the helicopter. He's so crazed he seems to think he can climb the sky...
He runs through the massacred party, he leaps onto tables, then vaults to the bar,
runs across the top, and leaps toward the shaft of a flagpole, then swings onto onto a tree,
he climbs higher from tree to tree, eventually jumping and hanging onto the landing gear..
He opens the helicopter doors and rams Terrell's head into the windshield...
Byron draws a pistol and shoots... Kato's body tumbles downward. He crashes through fifteen
feet of evergreens and crumbles below. Sarah is the first one to reach the body,
she takes Kato's bleeding head into her lap and screams.
We cut to an hospital operating theatre.. Surgeons attempt to save Kato's life, they
saw through his skull.. The prognostics don't look good. Even if survives, the brain damage
will be so severe that he'll never even remember the events that placed him into his condition.
Two years pass.. We see an isolated figure sitting in a wheelchair. It's Kato. Unrecognizable.
The bullet and the operation have scarred him bizarrely,
but there's a perverse, savage beauty to the damage... His expression is utterly blank.
Kato doesn't move, doesn't blink. He cannot feel pain, heat, cold or any physical sensation.
Psychological trauma has shut down his mind. He remains in daily physical
therapy so his muscles don't atrophy. Some drool gathers in the corner of his mouth.
Drips down onto his hospital pyjamas. Nobody notices. Nobody cares.
Except Sarah, she has been visiting him weekly although he remains oblivious and catatonic.
Sarah is under surveillance from the gang responsible for the wedding day bloodbath.
They plan to launch a new wave of crack cocaine and don't want any interference.
The criminals are operating from their base, a company called
Biodyne Pharmaceuticals, where unauthorised drug trials and experiments on animals take place.
One night as Kato sits vacant in the sunroom,
3 junkies break in attempting to steal drugs from the pharmacy.
Kato doesn't flinch as the junkies spot him, taunt him, flick a cigarette at him.
Kato's doctor walks in, the junkies turn on her and begin to assault her and threaten worse.
Kato remains unresponsive. And then..
Is it our imagination, or was there a flicker of a reaction in his eyes?
We see a Crow - At the window... It Caws and flaps its wings...
Kato stands up. A junkie stabs him
but he feels no pain or injury as he smashes the guy to the ground.
The two remaining junkies leap to their feet. The 2nd junkie charges - we hear the crack as
Kato breaks his arms, then his knees.
Kato spins and kicks. The remaining junkie attacks
but its like hitting a wall, Kato grabs him and hurls him through the window.
Kato now starts to regain his memories, he remembers the gangsters from the boat,
the drug deal, the wedding day slaughter, the helicopter.
Kato sits like a statue. A shaft of moonlight comes in through the wire and glass window.
A fellow patient named Oswald cuts Kato free from his straightjacket with a
scalpel and urges him to go free. Kato steps into a shaft of light
as the huge shadow of a Crow rises above him Kato leaps and crashes through the window, he
lands on the street and runs off into the night. The Crow watches, it caws triumphantly.
A tracker is placed on Sarah's car by the villains,
her presence makes them nervous, especially now that she is starting to investigate their
billion dollar pharmaceutical deal after an anonymous tip-off from one of the doctors.
Kato tracks Sarah down by strong-arming an old police informant,
he tries to warn her of the danger she's in but she mistakenly thinks he's delusional and takes
him to the airport to return him to the hospital.. He doesn't go easily though, he takes down a swarm
of cops and airport security until he's eventually overpowered and placed in a straitjacket.
Once Sarah realises the mistake she's made it's too late,
Kato is confined to his cell unable to move. ''Oh, God'' she says, ''...if I knew how
they were going to handle it, I never would have made the call...
I would have let you run anywhere you wanted to go... I only... want you to get better.''
Kato remains imprisoned in his padded cell when Oswald reappears, again with a scalpel,
''I have to let you try again.'' He says, as he cuts away the straight-jacket.
Kato flexes his muscles. The sleeves rip the rest of the way. He turns, heads into
the backlight of the waiting corridor. The gangsters have now overtaken the hospital
as they attempt to silence the doctor who blew the whistle on their scheme.
Kato drops into the scene, he takes out one gangster with a
surgical saw that slices off the top his head. Another one of the murderers is beaten and hurled
through a window to the pavement below. By now, every cop in the city descends
upon the scene as news breaks of this 'escaped lunatic on a murder spree'.
Kato catches up with another criminal and rips his brain
out of his head through his eye-sockets. The cops arrive and shoot but Kato escapes.
Kato steals a bus and drives straight into BioDyne Labs, he knows Byron and Terrell are close.
Byron's bodyguards attempt to stop him, a guy fires an Uzi at Kato as he descends the stairs,
Kato takes the hits, he snaps off an handrail and impales the bodyguard
A SWAT team arrive on the scene and pursue Kato who continues to advance towards his target.
Kato releases the caged animals from the lab's testing rooms,
they escape and scurry everywhere. Terrell grabs an Uzi and sprays bullets, killing
his own men in the process, one of the escaped lab chimps jumps on Terrell and claws at him,
he fires the Uzi, sees Kato, he slams a new clip into the gun...
''You should've stayed dead the first time, like your wife''
he says, taking aim, before Kato leaps forward and snaps Terrell's spine with a powerful kick.
The SWAT team advance closer. Snipers take up positions.
Byron tries to escape on the roof, he climbs into a chopper... Byron blasts Kato repeatedly
with rounds of ammunition an M-16 rifle. The chopper crashes into the building and Kato
finally has his hands on the man responsible for destroying his life.
He snaps his limbs one by one... The chopper explodes and fire engulfs the building.
Kato emerges intact. Sarah appears and embraces him.
The SWAT team arrive and aim their weapons at them. They countdown.. 3.. 2..
Suddenly a hospital chopper appears.. Oswald and another patient are controlling it.
They rescue Kato. Sarah climbs aboard and
flies off with the three lunatics and her broken but incorruptible Hero.
A moment later, The Crow rises into shot and follows the helicopter towards the rising sun.
Fade Out... The End.
Ultimately, 'Ballistic', the original screenplay on which 'The Crow: Resurrection' was based,
was owned by Warner Brothers. Pressman Films and Dimension Studios
would've needed to have paid out several hundred thousand dollars to purchase the
rights to release the script and so despite the best of intentions, it was not to be.
Instead, fans would get 'The Crow 3: Salvation', starring Eric Mabius, released in the year 2000
on the 23rd of January. Unfortunately the threequel wouldn't live up to the original.
It has it's supporters for sure, but in general, its widely considered to be a swing and a miss.