New Details on What Might Happen With Heath Ledger's Last Movie

Posted by Eriq Gardner

Heath Ledger's death has left producers of the actor's uncompleted "“The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus" with a big quandary over how to proceed with the film. THR has the news that production on the Terry Gilliam film has shut down. And the NYT fills in some of the details. Brian Kingman, managing director of Aon/Albert G. Ruben Insurance, told the paper "that only 18 days of filming had been completed on the film, suggesting that about $14 million had been spent, and that Mr. Ledger had been named an 'essential element' under the film’s cast-insurance policy."

This would give the producers the right to invoke the force majeure clause and abandon the film (and recoup the $14 million), or to reshoot the film with another actor. The Sun suggests that Johnny Depp is "poised" to fill Ledger's shoes, although the U.K. tabloid is a somewhat unreliable source.

It may not be as simple as that. As discussed in our earlier post, there could be room for the insurance company to challenge a claim depending on the outcome of the Ledger death investigation.