Though I first buzzed about an Academy Award nomination for Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight more than a month before his death, I now want to take it all back. I feel all the talk of Ledger’s posthumous Oscar chances will cloud my mind when I finally do see it, and it will probably also cloud the Academy’s judgment, too. Six months from now, when the nominations are announced on January 22 (coincidentally the one-year anniversary of Ledger’s death), if Ledger is not recognized for his role as The Joker, there will surely be an uproar — actually, Hollywood might just up and self-implode.
I’m not the only one annoyed by all the Oscar buzz. Terry Gilliam, who directed Ledger in The Brothers Grimm and the upcoming The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, is calling “bullshit” on the whole thing, particularly against Warner Bros., which Gilliam accuses of exploiting Ledger’s death and chance of a posthumous Oscar for publicity purposes. Considering most Oscar campaigns for live actors are really just part of movie marketing, he has a good point.
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There is so much going on these days in the marketing of The Dark Knight (see Chris Thilk’s most recent update/summary here), but Warner Bros. may be wasting a lot of time and money on its campaigns. If we’re to believe an AP story from yesterday, there’s already enough interest in the Batman Begins sequel coming from two separate directions: comic book fandom (”the magnitude of a comic-book franchise with an illustrious 70-year history”) and, of course, the cult of celebrity death (”arguably the biggest movie featuring a posthumous role in Hollywood history.”).
The article highlights a number of posthumous film releases, including those of James Dean (Rebel Without a Cause and Giant), Spencer Tracy (Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner), Will Rogers (Steamboat Round the Bend), Bruce Lee (Enter the Dragon), his son, Brandon Lee (The Crow), John Candy (Canadian Bacon and Wagon’s East!), Natalie Wood (Brainstorm), Carole Lombard (To Be or Not to Be), Oliver Reed (Gladiator), Clark Gable (The Misfits) and Aaliyah, whose Queen of the Damned is implied to have only been successful on account of the singer/actress’ accidental demise. However, none of these performers, the article argues, had the benefit of having such a blockbuster swan song as a Batman movie (coupled with the Terry Gilliam movie, of course, but Ledger’s actual final film is considerably less anticipated and so may be less notable). So certainly Ledger will be winning the contest for Biggest Posthumous Box Office.
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The New York Post has an image of one of two Joker action figures based on Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the villain in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. One version will come armed with a rocket launcher (!), the other with a plain old utilitarian knife. Mattel plans to release the toys in May.
You knew this blog post was coming when Warner Brothers issued a say-nothing statement hours after Heath Ledger’s body was found last week. Now, a little over a week later, the scraps of news and speculative think pieces are flooding in; I read them and put the relevant information in a bullet-point list so that you wouldn’t have to.
- Kim Masters at Slate says The Dark Knight hasn’t entered the ADR phase yet, meaning that if any of Ledger’s lines need re-recording, they’ll have to use a voice double. More interesting is the fact that Warner Brothers is spinning The Merchandising Issue as a moral one: if they don’t sell authorized t-shirts with Heath Ledger’s face on them, “The pirates would come out of the woodwork, and then it’s completely out of control.”
- Chris Thilk says the third party companies who planned to partner with Warner Brothers on tie-ins (including Hersheys, who are planning some kind of Batman chocolate bar) were mostly not planning on using Joker imagery anyway, and will be able to continue with their capitalization plans unabated.
- Borys Kit passes along word that WhySoSerious.com has been appended with a black ribbon. The creepy Joker images and Ledger soundbites otherwise remain intact.
- Meanwhile, at Reel Pop, Steve Bryant reports that the “Why So Serious?” poster featuring an image of Ledger, which will likely be taken out of print, is selling for upwards of $70 on eBay. “Does the fact that I desperately want one make me soulless and insensitive?”
More on Ledger, The Dark Knight, etc etc:
The Dark Knight trailer: Chris’ Review
Heath Ledger Joker Pics
Heath Ledger Found Dead
Joker Prequel: The Nontroversy (the prequel itself no longer exists on YouTube, but here are two posts about what it was like).
Daniel Day-Lewis on Heath Ledger
