What if an actor dies during the filming? Or worse - what if he's, say, playing the main character, but doesn't quite live to see the sequel? I know there was Brandon Lee, but were there any other similiar cases?
Imagine - you're George Lucas, suddenly Mark Hamill dies in a car crash in the middle of filming Return of the Jedi. Wat do?
In my mind, the director has 3 options: 1. recast the dead actor and reshoot all scenes 2. change the script to have said actor's character die off or exit permanently, and utilize already shot scenes 3. put the movie on hold indefinitely
Joseph Brown
Basically. Or there's this approach, but that only works for a certain kind of movie.
Adam Long
Cast Will Ferrell to play the role.
Chase Barnes
CGI his face on another dude's body
Eli Lopez
Bela Lugosi died during Plan Nine From Outer Space
Luis Harris
The Wizard master in Harry Potter died after the second one I believe.
Jacob Reed
>Imagine - you're George Lucas, suddenly Mark Hamill dies in a car crash in the middle of filming Return of the Jedi. Wat do?
Also, studios take out insurance policies on actors specifically to protect themselves from a situation like that, so they aren't totally fucked if something happens.
Sometimes it can affect casting. For people like Robert Downey Jr. back in the day and Lindsay Lohan now, it can be hard or impossible to secure insurance. Woody Allen couldn't cast RDJ or Winona for that reason.
Laurence Olivier was almost kept from being cast in Marathon Man because he was old and sick, and seemingly impossible to get insurance on. They managed it and he did the movie, but if he had died, they would've probably collected the policy and reshot with a different actor.
William Cook
come up with a plot point that the character died prematurely or left or sth
it's the worst if you're doing an adaptation
Imagine if Kit Harrington passed while shooting Season 6, you just cancel the show by then
Camden Long
Heath Ledger.
That pretty much sums it up OP
Henry Johnson
Timothy Carey was fired during Paths of Glory, because he was such an asshole. They left his scenes, rewrote parts of the script to make it work and put a stand-in for one or two more scenes that were necessary.
Ian Miller
They cover with CGI or cutting scenes.
Hunger Games 4 did it for Philip Seymour-Hoffman
Daniel Morris
What if an actor stops agreeing with the director and goes his own route?
Mason Rogers
Put a paper mask over somebody's face and then shoot them in shadow.
Owen Perry
Kubrick's greatest blunder.
Christopher Nelson
Clark Gable died during filming, and they finished it with a body double. Chris Farley was doing Shrek when he died, and they recast it.
David Bell
Nowadays probably CG the actor unless it's literally Harry Potter in the 5th movie, then maybe recast him and put an "in memory of Daniel Radcliffe" in the opening credits.
They replaced Dumbledore when he died in movie 3 I think and they CGs a bunch of Philip Seymor Hoffman in one of the Jennifer Lawrence movies I'm sure there's more
Jacob Ross
Worst I can think of would be the dude in the latest Fast & Furious. They CGI'd his face for the scenes that wasn't recorded. It actually worked surprisingly well with a few exceptions.
Robert Nelson
Remember when Aaliyah died during the filming of The Matrix Reloaded and it delayed the project like two years because they had already filmed so many of her scenes and her character's arc was cut to nothing along with chunks of the script?
The Wachowski Sisters remember.
Austin Phillips
kill his/her character , make body double similar face/cgi for scenes.
FF7 for example.
Liam Jackson
What was that one movie where they literally pasted a still image of the dead actor's face over some double and re-used reaction clips from old movies?
Jonathan Cooper
Game of Death?
Angel Reyes
The guy from Spartacus season one died. They did a prequel series while he was ill where he didn't appear and in season 3 they used a new actor. It was a good replacement but not quite the same. It didn't kill the series though.
Caleb Allen
they simply re-cast him and keep the show moving
Noah Parker
Nice.
Evan Stewart
You just wanted an excuse to write "The Wachoswki sisters
Landon Bell
Final Fantasy 7 did this? Wut. Like for a dub or something
Camden Gonzalez
4. Use CGI
Gavin Wright
Its actually really fucking sad. He died like months after being diagnosed
Owen Ortiz
The guy who played Peter Gregory died before they even finished filming Season 1 of Silicon Valley.
David Sanders
Really I wanted an excuse to blame Aaliyah for the Matrix sequels being shit.