Roy Scheider’s resurrected role isn’t the first time a film has been completed after an actor’s death

Jaws legend Roy Scheider passed away in 2008 before his final film was finished, but it has now been able to be completed thanks to advances in CGI and AI technology.

The completion of Beautiful Blue Eyes gives us a film closer to its original vision and a reinstated Roy Scheider in his final ever film role.

Scheider isn’t the first actor to pass away before their film has completed, or be added into a film years later, with in then subsequently being released through the wonders of special – and sometimes – not so special effects.

Bela Lugosi in Plan 9 From Outer Space

Quite rightly best known as Dracula, the actor had shot scenes for the director Ed Wood, but there was never a film. Instead, the notoriously thrifty director decided to create a film round the footage shot and market it as Lugosi’s last hurrah. Inexplicably, this included hiring a tall non-actor (Ed Wood’s chiropractor no less) to fill in. That noise you can hear is Lugosi spinning in his grave in his Dracula cape.

Bruce Lee in Game of Death

Bruce Lee had taken a break from filming Game of Death to complete Enter The Dragon, and was then set to return to complete Death, sadly the actual death of Lee put pay to that. With only a fight scene between him and basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the can, saving the film looked impossible.

After the success of Dragon, producers looked at any way of completing the picture and capitalising on the box office hit. Any we mean any way, which included hiring stand in who looked nothing like Lee – so spent half the film in terrible disguises – or had footage of Lee from other films. Worst of all it featured footage of the actual dead Lee in his open casket.

Roy Kinnear in The Return of the Musketeers

The comic actor – whose son Rory Kinnear is perhaps best known as Tanner in the Daniel Craig Bond films – tragically died whilst falling off a horse filming the third instalment of the Musketeer films. For the reminder of the film his charter “hilariously” ended up riding through the frame with a sack on his head so that we couldn’t see it wasn’t Kinnear. It certainly wasn’t the cleverest or most respectful of decisions.

Brandon Lee in The Crow

Brandon Lee, the son of Bruce Lee, is also sadly on the list. This time the death took place on a film set, filming the actual death of his character before he is resurrected as the titular The Crow.

Cameras filmed the actor’s actual death as – through a series of tragic mistakes – the remnants of an actual bullet were left in the gun. It was set to be a fatal error that saw the death of the 28-year-old.

Lee’s uncompleted scenes were finished with combination of a stunt double and CGI.

John Candy in Wagon’s East!

The popular comedian only had a handful of scenes to finish filming when he died of a heart attack.

Using a mix of stand-ins, rewriting scenes to not feature Candy’s character and using pre-exciting footage shot for the film, it was released and dedicated to the actor.

Oliver Reed in Gladiator

Before romping home to Oscar and box office glory, the Ridley Scott directed film starring Russell Crowe had the problem of Oliver Reed dying ahead of filming his climatic scenes where he helps Crowe in his escape from prison.

Utilising footage already shot, unused dialogue and reaction shots – alongside Reed’s stand-in and some clever CGI – they got the scene to work. It turned out to be a fitting tribute to the late actor.

Paul Walker in Furious 7

Walker’s death in a horrific car accident seemed like it would spell the end of the car and crime franchise, he was after-all one of the main characters. Filming was abandoned and everyone involved was just in sheer shock, until it was decided the film could be saved and Walker’s character could be given a suitable send off and touching tribute to the fans.

Again, this was achieved with using previously shot clips but also with the help of Walker’s two brothers, who also helped record key dialogue, The results are pretty amazing, it is definitely a heartfelt tribute to the man and the character he played in the franchise.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2

When Hoffman died of a drug overdose, his character still had several major films to film in the final chapter of The Hunger Games series, so using CGI his face used on a stand-in, whilst other scenes which would have featured his character – as they did in the book – were completely reworked.

Carrie Fisher in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

The Princess Leia actress was set to play a major part in the finale of this new trilogy of Star Wars film, but her unexpected death made that not look like it was able to happen, that is until unused shots from other recent Star Wars films were looked at and around that whole new scenes were created to give Leia and Fisher a fitting send off from the Star Wars universe.

Words by Dean Newman

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