Trivia: Although there were some plans for a potential fifth film, "The Crow: Wicked Prayer" ended up being the fourth and final entry in the original film franchise. A theatrical reboot of the series has been announced.
Trivia: When Jimmy is about to be brought back by the Crow, he has an eerie dream about Lily. If you listen carefully, you can hear two women whimpering in the background music/sounds. This particular sound effect is taken from the movie "Van Helsing" from the first scene to feature Dracula in color. (The only previous scene with him was black and white).
Trivia: The original script for this fourth entry in the series was titled "The Crow: Lazarus." It was about a wannabe rapper (who goes by the stage-name "Lazarus") who is murdered in a drive-by, and his journey to piece together the mystery of who set him up to be killed. The film was intended to be the first movie in the series with an African America lead, and controversial rapper Eminem was intended to play the villain. After the project fell apart, the script was hastily re-written to be (very) loosely based around a 2000 novel ("Wicked Prayer") inspired by the series, and the budget was drastically slashed, resulting in this film.
Trivia: Although intended mainly for a cable and direct-to-video release, the film was given a token one-week theatrical release on a single screen in Seattle, Washington.
Trivia: Was filmed very quickly and completed in 2003. However, it was shelved for two years before it was finally released.
Answer: As I understand it, it all had to do with a spat between the director of the original Crow movie (Alex Proyas, who had "approval" of all the subsequent Crow movies) the producer of the Crow movie franchise, Jeff Most, and Miramax. Miramax eventually caved in favor of the producer and it was made into a "non-Crow entity" when Miramax reportedly signed Eminem to play the bad guy.