Legacy
After Lee's death, his fiancée Eliza Hutton and his mother supported director Alex Proyas' decision to complete The Crow. At the time of Lee's death, only eight days were left before completion of the movie. A majority of the film had already been completed with Lee and only a few scenes remained to be done.
To complete the film, stunt double Chad Stahelski, who was a friend of Lee's at the famed Inosanto Academy, was used as a stand-in; special effects were used to add Lee's face onto the stunt double. Another stunt double named Jeff Cadiente was also used to complete the movie. These scenes were filmed after Lee's death:
* Eric Draven's death in flashbacks.
* A scene with Eric walking into his apartment after returning from the dead was digitally composited from a scene of Lee walking into an alleyway with raindrops added. The rest of the scenes in the apartment were all done with the double.
* Lee's face was digitally superimposed onto the stunt double when Eric puts on make-up in front of a mirror and walks toward the broken window of his apartment.
* When Sarah (Rochelle Davis) visits Eric, his face is not seen, as he is being played by the stunt double.
* The scene of Eric playing his guitar on the rooftop is played by one of Lee's body doubles.
* In the scene in which Eric Draven kills secondary villain T-Bird (David Patrick Kelly), he does not speak, nor is his face shown; the close-up of Draven's face was from a deleted shot.
* A scene in which Eric Draven is running on the rooftops from the police after a shootout was filmed with a double, as was his escape in a police car.
The Crow was released in May 1994 and became a box office hit, grossing over $50 million dollars in the U.S., and gaining a loyal cult following many years after its release. The film is dedicated to Lee and Hutton.
The grave site of Brandon Lee and his father, Bruce Lee
In an interview just prior to his death, Lee quoted a passage from Paul Bowles' book The Sheltering Sky that he had chosen for his wedding invitations; it is now inscribed on his tombstone:
"Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. And yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, or five times more? Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless..."
The quotation is not attributed to Bowles on his tombstone, leading some fans to the mistaken impression that Lee composed the passage himself.[citation needed] The interview can be seen on VHS, DVD and Blu-Ray releases of the The Crow.
At the time of his death, his father's biopic Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story was ready for release. The film was released two months after Lee's death, with a dedication to his memory in the end credits. In the film, Lee was portrayed by child actor Iain M. Parker.
Seven years after Lee's death, a direct-to-video Swedish film titled Sex, Lögner and Videovåld (Sex, Lies and Video Violence) was released in which Lee had a very brief cameo appearance. Lee had filmed his cameo appearance in 1992 at the time he was promoting Rapid Fire in Sweden, but the film was delayed for seven years finally releasing in 2000. It too was dedicated to Lee during the end credits.