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''Before we went to Wilmington, Brandon was so pleased. I remember him saying, 'You know, whatever happens with this project, nothing is as important to me as the fact that I am playing Eric Draven. This is my finest character.''' -Jeff Most

One month later, Proyas flew from Australia, where he'd gone just after Lee's death, to L.A., where with Pressman's help he began rewriting David Schow and John Shirley's script. (Of the decision not to bring in the original writers, Most says, "We sought to bring another viewpoint to the project.") In the revised script, Proyas would have to make up for Lee's unshot scenes, most of which were intended to show Eric and Shelly's passion for each other and more fully explain the motive for Eric's back-from-the-dead revenge.

Six weeks after Lee's death, Pressman placed calls to the cast and crew members, telling them to meet in Wilmington on May 26 to begin the work of completing the film.

The Crow's cast and crew had spent their time off bracing themselves for the return to North Carolina. "I didn't want to go back and finish it," says Hudson, who plays a policeman who comes to the ghostly Eric's aid. "There was a part of me that said, 'Yeah, right, this is for Brandon.' No, it's because you've got so much money put into this thing, and you need to make some money out of it. But then I got a call from Lance (Anderson, who did Lee's makeup), and he felt we should do it for Brandon, because Brandon had worked very hard."

"I was very close to Brandon, and I felt completing the film would be closing the loop," Anderson, 55, says. "I have a son exactly his age (Lee was 28 when he died), and I related to him like a father. So the time at home made me feel even stronger about going back to finish." Shinas returned only because she was contractually obliged. "What happened on that stage truly gives new meaning to the word tragedy. I really didn't want to go back," she says, her voice shaking.

"(While doing Brandon's makeup) I had to keep low-key, because if I started talking, it would set Brandon off on a story, and we would be in for an extra half hour of makeup. He loved Game Boy-he was addicted to it. I'd be painting these delicate lines on his face, and he'd hit a point on the game, and it would be time for a cleanup job." -Lance Anderson

When the cast and crew reconvened in Wilmington, Proyas presented them with an emotionally softened, reworked script. Many of Lee's half-completed scenes were reconceived as silent montages. The relationship between Hudson's character and Sarah, Draven's young friend, played by Rochelle Davis, was deepened by adding exchanges between the two. Finally, the Skull Cowboy, a dark character who taunts Draven with the rules of the dead, was replaced by Sarah's tender narration. Her words at the start of the film echo the filmmakers' emotions about finishing the project: "Sometimes, something so bad happens," she says of the creature that guides the dead through the land of the living, "that the Crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right."

But rewrites alone couldn't put the movie on track. For several unfilmed scenes in which Lee's character was essential, stunt coordinator Jeff Imada, 38, brought in stuntman Chad Stahelski as Lee's body double. Stahelski had trained with Lee at L.A.'s Inosanto Academy, a martial-arts school run by Dan Inosanto, who once worked as Bruce Lee's sparring partner. "Chad knew how Brandon moved," Imada says. Stahelski shared duties with Jeff Cadiente, who had been Lee's stunt double throughout the film, and replaced him for scenes that required someone who looked more like Lee.

Originally, Stahelski and Cadiente were to have worn foam-rubber life masks cast from Lee's face before the film started production, but "no one felt good about it," says Anderson. Instead, almost all the scenes using doubles were designed as long shots: "You can't see stuntmen's faces from a distance, anyway." For example, one sequence early in the completed film shows Draven having flashbacks as he walks through his apartment; Stahelski was actually used for some of these shots.


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