Heath Ledger's
death has spiked sales and interest in the late actor's
films.
As often happens
after the death of a famous actor or musician, many have
sought to revisit or simply discover his work. Three of
Ledger's movies charted among the 25 best-selling DVDs
on Amazon.com as of Friday afternoon.
Most have been
purchasing copies of Ledger's 1999 comedy 10 Things I
Hate About You and his 2001 period action
flick A Knight's Tale. After those films,
Ledger pursued more dramatic, challenging roles, with 2005's
Brokeback Mountain, the third most popular of his
DVDs on Amazon, being roundly considered his finest
achievement.
The 28-year-old
Australia native died Tuesday in a Manhattan apartment.
Toxicology tests to determine the cause of death will not be
completed for at least a week.
Ledger's latest
film to be released, the multipersona Bob Dylan film I'm
Not There, has mostly completed its theatrical
run. It played in only 61 theaters last weekend. The lone
theater where it remains playing in New York City is the
Film Forum, an art house and repertory theater that
has been screening I'm Not There since it was
released in November.
''The film is
doing very well, and as long as it does well, we'll play
it,'' said Film Forum first-run programmer Karen Cooper. ''I
don't imagine that it's going to do better because of
his loss. I think it's doing as well as it is because
it's a very strong and interesting and unusual film.''
The impact of
Ledger's death on his last completed project, The Dark
Knight, remains to be seen. The latest installment
in the Batman series, Ledger plays the Joker, and his dark,
twisted take on the villain had been a focal point in the
film's advance promotion.
Since Ledger's
death, over 7 million have flocked to YouTube to watch
trailers of The Dark Knight. Over 1 million
have watched a clip of an interview where Ledger discusses
the Joker role.
Warner Bros., the
studio distributing The Dark Knight, has not
yet announced any change in schedule for the film,
which is planned for a blockbuster summer release on July
18.
''Certainly
The Dark Knight is one of the most
anticipated films of the year,'' said Paul Dergarabedian,
president of box office tracker Media by Numbers. ''I
think Warners is just going to stay the course and
keep marketing the film.''
As for its box
office performance, Dergarabedian suspects the film is so
big that it ''kind of transcends almost anything like this
that might happen.'' He adds that the film's release
will to a certain degree honor Ledger, whose
performance was already expected to impress moviegoers.
At the time of
his death, Ledger was in the midst of shooting The
Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, a $30 million
film directed by Terry Gilliam. The movie recently completed
shooting scenes in London and was soon to resume
production in Vancouver, British Canada. Producers
have not said whether the film will continue or not.
In the film,
Ledger was to costar with Christopher Plummer, Lily Cole,
and Tom Waits. Options open to producers, depending upon how
many scenes Ledger had left to shoot, include
recasting (and thus reshooting) his part, finishing it
with the help of a body double (as was done after
Brandon Lee died while making 1994's The Crow),
or simply canning production.
Ledger had also
been preparing to make his feature directing debut by
adapting Walter Tevis's novel The Queen's Gambit.
In an interview
last month with Variety, Gilliam told the trade
paper: ''Heath is extraordinary. He's just so good,
and he's going to be a film director. He's watching
everything, and he's going to be a much better
director than I will ever be.'' (AP)