Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. With Heath Ledger's surprising and tragic death (a heart attack they're saying now) came talk of Terry Gilliam's curse. Ledger had shot a good amount of his work on Gilliam's new movie, THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS. There have been rumors that Johnny Depp was going to step in for Ledger, but I thought that didn't make much sense since Depp is committed to so many projects, including PUBLIC ENEMIES with Michael Mann.

Now comes a heads up from "Jerome" who points me to an IMDB message board thread where someone claims to know how they're handling Ledger's death and the transformation into different actors.

Now, it's not exactly trustworthy... anyone can post what they want on IMDB, but this feels right to me and it feels like something that could have been heard from the Costume Designer. She'd be one of the first to know so she can get wardrobe prepared.

The rumor is that at certain points during the film the main character, which was played by Ledger, fell through magic mirrors and, I would assume, into different realities or fantasy lands. The word is that each time this happens (3 or 4 times in the movie) the character will be played by a different actor and Depp would be one of those actors (which makes sense why he can fit this into his schedule), the other two being actors just as well known as Depp.

This sounds to me like a great way for the community to pay tribute to Ledger's final performance. I hope it is true. I have a few strings of my own I can pull to find out some info on the goings on up there, so I will do my best to clarify this for you in the coming weeks.

Thoughts?