Hard-Working Mabius Looking For Big Hit At Box Office

Eric Mabius may be one of the hardest-working actors in Hollywood. He’s made 16 movies since 1995, and in between he’s made guest appearances on such TV shows as “Party of Five,” “Millennium” and “Chicago Hope.”

So why isn’t he a household name?

“The bottom line,” he explained during a recent phone interview, “is box office.”

Fact is, Mabius has worked a lot. But most of his movies are of the low-budget kind seen mostly by Sundance Film Festival fans.

“It’s a crooked path,” he admitted.

Yet Mabius’ anonymity may, or may not, be about to change. He’s the star of “The Crow: Salvation,” the third movie adaptation of Jamie O’Barr’s cult comic book franchise that opened Friday for an exclusive test run at AMC’s River Park Square Cinemas.

Mabius plays Alex Corvis, a guy who watches his girlfriend get murdered. Convicted of the crime, he is executed — only to return, complete with the legendary power of the crow, to take his revenge on the true killers.

Seems like a normal Hollywood movie. So why the Spokane test run?

“It’s essentially a power struggle that’s gone on for years between two different factions,” Mabius explained. “It’s a frustrating thing for everyone involved because the struggle is between who does, and who doesn’t, think the film can make a lot of money.”

Money has been the least of the problems faced by “The Crow” franchise over the years. The original 1994 film was made infamous by the accidental shooting death of star Brandon Lee. The 1996 sequel, which starred European heartthrob Vincent Perez, was panned by critics and fans alike.

So while it may be pertinent to wonder why anyone would even try to make a third film, Mabius remains glad that he won the lead role. Sure, it was a brutal shoot, subjecting him to six weeks of pre-location martial arts training, days of simulated death and all-night shooting schedules in a Salt Lake City warehouse.

It also offered him an opportunity to expand his career.

“I sort of feel that my generation doesn’t have any actors, or many anyway, who can do action and can carry a dramatic line,” Mabius said. “And I wanted to explore that.”

A product of Sarah Lawrence College, where he studied drama and dance, the 29-year-old Mabius first earned attention in Todd Solondz’s 1995 independent feature “Welcome to the Dollhouse” (he was the object of Heather Matarazzo’s affections).

Mabius’ steady presence, not to mention his hunky good looks, have kept him busy. “The Crow: Salvation” director Bharat Nalluri wanted him from the beginning and fought to keep him despite a movement to hire somebody with more name recognition.

Now the struggle is to earn the film a larger theatrical release instead of watching it head straight to video.

“All the test audiences loved it,” Mabius said, “and they tested it in some of the hardest markets in the country.”

That includes Los Angeles, he said, where “all these frustrated, out-of-work filmmakers and actors always play like Siskel and Ebert and rip apart someone else’s film. But the numbers were great every time.”

It may be different in Spokane. The last time a film with major talent was test-run here, the results were less than thrilling. Remember 1998’s “The Curve” with Matthew Lillard, Keri Russell and Michael Vartan?

Whatever the film’s fate, Mabius has no regrets. He was able to do an R-rated action movie that crackles with simulated gunfire, yet still stay true to his training as an actor.

“The highest compliment I’ve been paid is when audiences say things like, `He seems like the kind of normal guy that would be a friend of ours who this happened to,’ ” Mabius said. “That’s the coolest thing I could hear because it’s everything that I wanted to convey.”