The Culture Czar

Gilliam to Finish Parnassus with a CGI Heath Ledger?

Getty Images

Heath Ledger was in the middle of shooting The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus when he died last week. Since then, director Terry Gilliam has been scrambling to find a way to finish the movie. Despite earlier reports that the director, who has helmed 1975's Monty Python & the Holy Grail, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Brothers Grimm, might shelve the $30 million production, Mr. Ledger's co-star Christopher Plummer told People Magazine that "because the film deals with magic, there is a way, perhaps, of turning Heath into other people and then, using stills and I think they call it CGI…"

More from People after the jump.

"Terry was a very good friend [of Heath's]," adds Plummer. "He very wants to go on with the movie, and I can very much understand why. Because he wants to dedicate it to Heath, of course."

Ledger and Plummer both left the London portion of the movie's shoot last weekend and were due to continue filming next week in Vancouver. Leaving England, says Plummer, "Heath was in very high spirits. He was just enjoying himself tremendously. It's a rather fanciful script, and he was wonderful in this role."

...

Ledger would have appreciated the show-must-go-on mentality, says his co-star. "He was terribly likeable and obviously enormously talented…and the combination was terrific. It's such a shame these things have to happen to the good ones."

  • del.icio.us
  • Digg
  • Reddit
  • Newsvine
  • Google
  • Yahoo
  • Technorati
  • Facebook
  • Stumble Upon
  • Netvibes
  • Windows Live

Comments
Post a comment

Post a comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd><br> <p> <i> <b> <embed> <img> <blockquote> <span> <strikethrough> <u>
  • Use <!--pagebreak--> to create page breaks.

More information about formatting options

By checking this box you are giving permission for Observer staff to contact you to obtain contact information and permissions required for publication.