The phrase "Hollywood movie magic" isn't just used to describe the production behind Tinseltown. Oftentimes, the work done behind the scenes truly does feel and look seamless, to the point that much of that so-called "magic" has been used to bring actors back from the dead.
Sometimes, actors die unexpectedly during the production of a movie, but because Hollywood is a never-ending machine where the show must go on, this is where the magic happens. It is here when filmmakers are at their most creative. Rather than swap out the late actor with another one or re-film everything from scratch, the creators and studio come together to brainstorm ways to ensure an actor's legacy can live on long after they've died.
10 Pay Tribute To Paul Walker And His Character - Furious 7
The production of Furious 7 was rocked terribly when star Paul Walker suddenly and tragically died before the movie could be finished. As production was halted as everyone mourned, questions were presented on whether or not the movie could or should finish without Walker.
The decision was made to recut the movie with new and old footage of Walker (not just of the final scenes Walker filmed, but also of outtakes) whilst using his two brothers as stand-ins for Walker's scenes. The late actor's face was digitally inserted onto the bodies of his brothers. The ending was then rewritten to provide fans with closure to not only Walker, but his character as Brian, who retired to live the happy ending he always wanted.
9 Incorporate Dream Facial Changes - The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
After filming his breakout turn in The Dark Knight, before he had a chance to see the movie released, Heath Ledger was already back to work in the lead role of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. However, he died halfway into production.
While production was shut down trying to figure out how to continue filming, director Terry Gilliam decided that every time Ledger's character would enter the dream world, his face would change drastically. Gilliam reached out personally to Ledger's friends - Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell - to play Ledger in the dream world.
8 Use 25 Years Worth Of Unused Dialogue - Toy Story 4
Before production could even begin on Toy Story 4, Don Rickles passed away at the age of 90. Rickles, of course, provided the voice of Mr. Potato Head in the Toy Story trilogy and almost all of its spinoff media.
Per director Josh Cooley to Entertainment Weekly, Rickles' family had reached out to him personally to ask if there was any way the comedian could still be in the movie. So Cooley and Co. decided to go through "25 years of everything we didn’t use for Toy Story 1, 2, 3, the theme parks, the ice capades, the video games [and] everything that he’s recorded for Mr. Potato Head" to ensure Rickles was included. The movie is also dedicated to his memory.
7 Slightly Tweak A Character's Presence - The Hunger Games: Mockingjay 2
In this case, the best way to work around an actor's death was to simply scale his character back from what he was originally intended to be. Philip Seymour Hoffman died before he could finish filming scenes for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2, where his character was supposed to have a large role that matched his role in the book, particularly in the ending.
As is the case with many production crews in this situation, director Francis Lawrence was given the option to digitally insert Hoffman into scenes using special effects, but Lawrence thought that the most respectful thing would be to rewrite the movie to have his character scaled back. Such tweaks included nixing a monologue for Hoffman and replacing it with his character's words being read by another character via a letter.
6 Write Around Previously Deleted Scenes - The Rise Of Skywalker
When Carrie Fisher passed away, her death came mere months after filming her scenes in The Last Jedi, a year before that movie was released and before a script was even produced for The Rise of Skywalker, where J.J. Abrams hoped Leia could have a large role.
To fulfill his plans, Abrams took a look at unused footage from between The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi and sought to have them digitally inserted into The Last Jedi with the screenplay being written around those same scenes amid "new contexts, new locations, new situations... whenever you see Carrie, we completely constructed, lit, and composed the shots around the original pieces that we had," per Abrams' own words to Vanity Fair.
5 Including Unused Archive Recordings - Cars 3
Big fans of the legendary Oscar-winner may look through Paul Newman's filmography and notice that his final movie credit is Cars 3. This is already a strange movie to end a career like his on, but it's even stranger considering that Cars 3 came out almost a full decade after Newman's death.
This is because, seeing as Newman played Lightning McQueen's dad in the first movie, Cars 3 implemented unused archive audio recordings that Newman made during the making of the first Cars and implemented them into the third for a flashback scene. While this wasn't made with the same urgency as other movies filmed mere months after an actor's death, it's nonetheless impressive.
4 Body Doubles And CGI - Gladiator
Gladiator may be the most critically acclaimed movie on the list, considering it won several Oscars upon its release, including Best Picture. Some of the movie's most impressive work lies not in the action sequences, performances, or story, but in how it salvaged Oliver Reed's performance from beyond the grave.
Reed died of a heart attack before he could film his final scenes, which were vital to the plot. To rectify this, the studio pulled out every bit of footage they could use of Reed to craft his CGI-imposed face onto a body double, while also combining it all with unused outtakes of Reed himself. It made for a sendoff that's surprisingly seamless - especially by the year 2000's standards - for both the character and the actor behind him.
3 Completely Change The Script And Swap Villains - Lost City Of The Jungle
During the making of Lost City of the Jungle, Lionel Atwill - who played the movie's villain, Sir Eric Hazarias - unexpectedly died during production due to complications related to his lung cancer. Universal Pictures was tempted to scrap the movie altogether, but it would have cost them more money to dump it than to keep it.
Drastic changes were made to the script for the remainder of production. First, Atwill's remaining scenes were filled in by a body double. Second, actor John Mylong - who was originally introduced as a mere servant to Hazarias - was promoted to lead villain.
2 One Of The First Body CGI Post-Death Jobs - The Crow
This is yet another case of production employing the technique of using a body double and digitally imposing the late actor posthumously onto their face, but this technique was at its most impressive in 1994 as one of the first movies to do it.
Production had to shift gears during the making of The Crow after Brandon Lee's tragic passing. Any scenes that Lee hadn't filmed yet were filled in by a body double and CGI was used. The apartment scene in particular was made with CGI using a past scene Lee was in. It may not look so seamless to the untrained eye, but in 1994, audiences were none the wiser and blown away.
1 Natalie Wood's Sister Filled In - Brainstorm
Natalie Wood's death may be the most infamous on this list as it remains a mystery to this day: Wood disappeared from a boat in Catalina where she had been with her husband Robert Wagner and Brainstorm co-star Christopher Walken. Brainstorm still had to be finished after her death. To do this, the studio took a more tasteful approach by asking Wood's sister, Lana, to serve as her stand-in body double for the character's few remaining scenes, with her face being obscured using some subtle camera angles.
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