Updated: December 01, 2013, 12:00 AM
In pictures: actors who died during filming
Brandon Lee. Killed in a stunt-gone-wrong on the set of The Crow in 1993, a double was used to finish off the production, with Lee’s face was digitally superimposed in certain scenes. Getty Images
In January 2008, the Australian actor Heath Ledger went to sleep in his New York City apartment and never woke up. His death, an accidental drug overdose, severely disrupted the fantasy drama The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus. The film was salvaged with actors Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law enlisted to appear in a mystical version’s of Ledger’s character. Footage of Ledger was used as for his character appearing in “the real world”. EPA
When Oliver Reed died of a heart attack in 1999, most of his scenes in the upcoming 2000 drama Gladiator had been shot. Director Ridley Scott digitally recreated Reed’s face to fill in some of the remaining gaps. PA
Phoenix’s death in 1993 as a result of drug overdose resulted in the abandonment of the western Dark Blood featuring Judy Davis and Jonathan Pryce. While 80 per cent of the film was shot, up to six critical scenes remained to be filmed. In 2011, the director George Sluizer re-edited the film and inserted narration to fill in the gaps. The film has received some select screenings this year, including the Berlin and Split film festivals. AP
Cult director Ed Wood had a script finished but needed a star. So instead of picking one that was alive and well, he used unrelated and unreleased footage he had shot earlier with Bela Lugosi and added it to his 1959 horror film Grave Robbers from Outer Space. A stand in was hired to round out Lugosi's scenes, even though the actor had no physical resemblance to Lugosi in any conceivable way. AP
The Canadian comedy actor John Candy had only a few scenes left to shoot on the western comedy Wagon's East and was on location in Durango, Mexico when he died suddenly at the age of 43. The actor was reportedly digitally inserted in scenes to complete the film, which was a flop at the box office. Courtesy Universal Pictures
The John Landis directed segment of the 1983 Twilight Zone: The Movie had to be radically rescripted after a helicopter crashed killed actor Vic Morrow the previous year along with Vietnamese child actors Myca Dinh Lea and Renee Shin-Yi Chen. It was later revealed the film violated child labour laws with the illegal hiring of the under-age child actors. Despite an acrimonious court case, the film was released with scenes featuring the children omitted.
The controversial drowning of Natalie Wood in 1981 resulted in the temporary halt in production for her last film Brainstorm. With most of her major scenes completed upon her death, director Douglas Trumbull re-wrote the script and used a body double for some of Wood's scenes. The drama was eventually released in 1983 to a tepid box office response.