Terry Gilliam to Replace Heath Ledger with CGI in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus?
Although most of the initial questions that came up after Heath Ledger’s death seemed to revolve around how it might affect the upcoming release of The Dark Knight, once people realized that the movie had already entered into post-production, they turned their attention to the movie he had actually been in the middle of shooting: Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. Gilliam has had more bad luck making movies than probably any other director working today (just check out Lost in La Mancha if you don’t believe me) and now he has the difficult task of figuring out how to a continue a movie that is half-finished without one of its lead actors.
Initial reports stated that Johnny Depp may be brought on board to replace Ledger. Since the movie involved a character falling through a mirror into an alternate world, it was thought that maybe they could keep Ledger’s performance in the real world, but substitute a different actor for his character in the alternate world. However, according to Christopher Plummer, who plays Doctor Parnassus, Terry Gilliam is currently seeking out a way to use CGI to keep all of Ledger’s scenes in the picture. I can certainly understand wanting to retain as much of the stuff he had already shot with Ledger; after all, this being his final film, you’d want to honour his work and pay tribute to him. The question is, can CG actually be used to create a reasonable likeness of Ledger? A similar technique was used for The Crow, where Brandon Lee’s face was digitally appended to the body of his stunt double. However, with half a movie still left to shoot, maybe that would be asking too much. Do you think CGI is the best way for Gilliam to salvage the movie? Or is scrapping the movie entirely the only respectful thing to do in this situation?
Comments (5)
the best thing to do.
Posted by roy_the_gamer on January 30th, 2008I think they should only continue if they can find an interesting way to use Ledger’s character without incorporating cheap tricks or bad CGI.
Posted by Dane on January 30th, 2008I really think it would be best just to re-cast the part and have someone else play the role entirely. However, I think that regardless of what they do, the film will now be doomed to be known as “That film Heath was doing when he died.” It will/has become something of a novelty, and it will be hard for a lot of people to look past that. That just sucks, plain and simple, any way you look at it.
Posted by Jon Rocks on January 30th, 2008Well, don’t forget, this is a business, and they just received a boatload of free publicity (as morbid as that may sound). Salvaging the shots with Heath would make this film as close to a “sure thing” as you can possibly get in this business.
So my prediction is that “yes”, they release the film, and “yes” they find a way to incorporate the scenes shot with Heath.
Posted by deepb on January 31st, 2008I recall hearing some news/rumors a while ago about a film in which Bruce Lee would appear in full CG despite his being dead for quite some time and it really bothered me. I feel the same way about this. I wasn’t a big fan of the fact that all of the characters in Beowulf looked exactly like their real-life counterparts, but that was no big deal. However if someone is no longer among the living, I feel like it’s wrong to put them in a movie using CG. I mean, you can always get someone else to play them if you’re making a biopic or something, but making a new movie starring a CG version of a dead person? I dunno. I can’t wrap my mind around it. Yes, Heath Ledger was already signed up for this movie and began shooting it, etc., but it just doesn’t seem right for some reason. I don’t usually have a strong sense of morals, but I can’t seem to wrap my mind around this concept.
Also, you have to take into account that the CG character won’t have all of the presence of the real Ledger even though they already have some footage to work from. Then there’s the problems involved in giving the character the deceased’s voice. I wouldn’t ask the filmmakers to scrap the entire film, or even the scenes Ledger has filmed, but I’d rather see a different approach used to bringing Ledger’s character to life aside from using CG.
Posted by Rian on February 4th, 2008Leave a Reply