Dead actors starring in movies...

[NorthbyNorthWest]

Hey there guys...

I recently watched Game of Death starring Bruce Lee. For those who don't know it was the movie made after he died, assembled from old footage from an unfinished movie and hilariously bad new footage.

It got me thinking of the whole phenomenon of people trying to somehow assemble a "new" movie starring somebody who is already dead. I already know about Plan 9 and it's clumsy use of old Bela Lugosi of course, but what are some other examples of an actor who's already dead having a role in a movie?

[Trevor]

I think the worst examples are the films The Trail of The Pink Panther and The Curse of The Pink Panther which were released after Peter Sellers' death with outtakes of him cobbled together with new material. That particular series comes to an end with Clouseau having had plastic surgery, leaving him looking like Sir Roger Moore with an ice bucket on his head.  

[The Burgomaster]

THE CROW

[Doggett]

Marlon Brando. - Superman Returns

[El Misfit]

Darkstar- The interactive movie. it stars Peter Graves, release date is December 2010.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497352/

[Mr. DS]

Not exactly a movie but when the actress playing Tony's mother on the Sopranos died in real life, they superimposed her prior performances on someone else's body. 

[Trevor]

Ridley Scott's Gladiator during which Oliver Reed passed away.
Heather O'Rourke in Poltergeist 3
Vic Morrow in The Twilight Zone: The Movie
Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight

[Flick James]

Not exactly a movie but when the actress playing Tony's mother on the Sopranos died in real life, they superimposed her prior performances on someone else's body. 

I was an avid Sopranos watcher and I remember that episode. They took some shots from a single scene from the first season and just edited them in, then took other shots where she was wearing something different, and superimposed it onto someone wearing a matching outfit. It looked really weird and kinda creeped me out.

[Raffine]

The Big Giant Head of Sir Lawrence Olivier had a featured role in SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW almost 20 years after his death.

[vukxfiles]

Bullet (1996) released a month after tupac was killed

[Trevor]

South Africa's first political thriller Die Kandidaat [The Candidate] had the brilliant actor Gert van den Bergh ~ who was also in Zulu and The Naked Prey ~ as one of the main characters. Van Den Bergh was not in good health making the film and indeed, suffered two heart attacks making it. He was warned not to continue with the film, he ignored the warning and passed away before the film was released.

[LilCerberus]

I heard somewhere once, that all three of James Dean's movies were still in post production when he was killed.

[retrorussell]

Dorothy Stratten in They All Laughed (1981), released the year after she was shot by her creep husband.

[Raffine]

Natalie Wood drowned in 1981. Her last film, BRAINSTORM, was released in 1983.

Her role was unfinished, since she died during production.

According to Wikipedia:  Due to her untimely death the ending of Brainstorm had to be re-written. A stand-in and sound-a-likes were used to replace Wood for some of her critical scenes.

[LilCerberus]

Trinidad Silva was killed by a drunk driver while filming Weird Al's UHF.

The movie was supposed to end with his character Raul getting attacked by an angry swarm of flying poodles.