1.
Philip Seymour Hoffman died of a heroin overdose while he was filming The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Parts 1 and 2 — he only had 10 days left of filming on set at the time of his passing. Instead of recasting, executives considered using CGI to finish recording his scenes. However, after some small rewrites, Woody Harrelson and Julianne Moore’s characters took some of his lines. The studio did, in fact, include already-existing footage of Philip in scenes where his character would have been present.
2.
Richard Harris originated the role of Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets but died before the third film could be completed. Four months later, Michael Gambon was cast as the replacement Dumbledore and he continued to play him for the next six movies in the Harry Potter franchise.
3.
Jim Varney played Slinky in Toy Story and Toy Story 2, but he died of lung cancer in 2000. His friend and fellow actor, Blake Clark — aka Shawn Hunter’s dad from Boy Meets World — replaced him and played the role for Toy Story 3 and Toy Story 4.
4.
Paul Walker died in a car accident while filming Fast & Furious 7, but instead of recasting or rewriting, the studio spent $50 million to complete the film using a combination of CGI and Paul’s younger brothers as stand-ins for his character Brian. The production team for FF7 also merged archival footage of Paul’s voice with his brothers’ voices to fill in the gaps in the movie.
5.
Carrie Fisher died shortly after finishing her work on The Last Jedi in 2016. However, her final film appearance happens in The Rise of Skywalker, which had barely started production by the time of her death. Director JJ Abrams didn’t want to recast or use CGI but wanted Leia to be a part of the story, so he found unused footage of Carrie from The Force Awakens. Screenwriters were then able to create a scene that made sense for that footage.
6.
Cory Monteith, who played Finn Hudson on Glee, sadly died just before the cast was meant to return from hiatus and begin filming the show’s fifth season. Because of his unexpected death, filming got pushed back and ultimately, the writers wrote Cory’s death into the series. In the show, they never explicitly reveal how Finn died out of respect for Cory. The series dedicated an entire Glee episode to Cory and called it “The Quarterback.”
7.
Aaliyah was originally cast as Zee in The Matrix: Reloaded and even filmed part of the movie before she died in a plane crash in 2001. After her death, the studio held auditions for a replacement, and Nona Gaye, Marvin Gaye’s daughter, was cast to play Zee in The Matrix: Reloaded and The Matrix: Revolutions.
8.
John Ritter died in the middle of filming his series 8 Simple Rules, and the writers decided his character Paul would also die of a heart attack. John had filmed the first three episodes of Season 2 before his death; then the series went on hiatus. They returned with an episode dedicated to his character’s death.
9.
Heath Ledger died in the middle of filming The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus, and after reimagining the role, Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell were all brought in to replace him. The script was reworked to show that as the main character traveled through different dimensions, his appearance transformed as well, which was shown through the addition of Johnny, Jude, and Colin.
10.
Chris Farley was originally cast as Shrek — the creators based Shrek and Donkey’s relationship on Chris and David Spade’s in Tommy Boy — and he recorded the vocals for almost the entire movie before his death in 1997. Mike Myers went on to take over the role of Shrek and asked that the script be totally rewritten for his own style of comedy. Over the next three years, he recorded the new script in his own accent and again in the character’s signature Scottish accent.
11.
Luke Perry died while filming the series Riverdale, and the writers decided to dedicate Season 4’s premiere to his character’s death. In the series, he dies in a car accident after helping a woman whose car got stuck on the side of the road. She was played by Luke’s former 90210 costar and friend Shannen Doherty.
12.
Nancy Marchand died while starring on The Sopranos. Although her character died at the beginning of the show’s third season, series creator David Chase used visual effects to include Nancy in one final scene. He explained that he was able to build a scene using outtakes and unused footage of Nancy from previous seasons.
13.
Finally, Oliver Reed was almost finished filming his scenes in Gladiator before dying of a heart attack. Instead of replacing him, producers used CGI to digitally graft his face onto a stand-in. Oliver died at the pub after challenging a group of sailors to a “drinking debauch” — Oliver had even promised director Ridley Scott that he would not drink on filming days, only on weekends.
