Ledger May Still Fulfill Parnassus Role

Last week we reported news that Johnny Depp may have been wanted by Terry Gilliam to complete the filming of Heath Ledger’s role in his upcoming film, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.

Now People is reporting that was unfounded, as Depp’s representative said,

“There have been no official talks, and he is currently working on Public Enemies for Michael Mann for Universal.”

As much as Gilliam does not want to scrap production on the film, how will he complete filming for Ledger’s role? Co-star Christopher Plummer told People,

“Terry’s throwing himself into the job of trying to salvage the picture…trying to work out at this moment how to continue on. Fortunately, 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…”

This sounds different than the earlier rumor of actually having another actor (Depp) take over for Ledger, and calls to mind efforts taken to complete The Crow, during which star Brandon Lee was accidentally killed near the end of filming, and his face was digitally superimposed on his stunt double.

Could the same thing happen with Ledger? It sounds that way. We’ll keep you posted as this story continues to develop.