Depp, Law and Farrell to Replace Heath Ledger?
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Feb 15, 2008 08:19 PM ET
- by
Ken Fox
Johnny Depp by Eamonn McCormack/ WireImage.com, Heath Ledger by J. Vespa/ WireImage.com
From
Bela Lugosi's heart attack during
Plan 9 from Outer Space and
Natalie Wood's drowning midway through
Brainstorm to
Brandon Lee's fatal shooting on the set of
The Crow, a number of productions have had to work around the unexpected death of a leading actor. Now it seems
Terry Gilliam, the director of
Heath Ledger's last project,
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, may have found a most creative way around his own tragic dilemma. According to
Ain't It Cool News, Ledger's role in the film will now be played by not one but
three alternating replacements:
Johnny Depp,
Colin Farrell and
Jude Law.
Not much is known about the plot of the film, but Ledger's character has been described as a man in love with a young woman whose soul has been sold to the devil by her father, the traveling showman of the title, in exchange for eternal youth. No word yet on how the rather extreme differences in the four actors' looks will be explained.
If any one could pull this off, it's the imaginative and daring Gilliam, who also directed Ledger in 2005's
The Brothers Grimm, but it sounds to me like a risky gambit. This could be either a touching tribute from a director and trio of fellow actors, or a confusing disaster. What do you think?
