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On March 31, 1993, Brandon Lee arrived on set for what he presumed to be another ordinary day of filming on the movie he believed would become his breakthrough release, The Crow. There was no possible way that he could have foreseen the brutal twist of fate that led to his death. During an action sequence involving gun fire, a mistake with the props department caused a dummy bullet to operate with enough force to strike Lee’s abdomen. As he collapsed to the ground, shock fell over the cast. The titular star of The Crow died long before production had completed.

Ignoring the personal tragedy of a 28-year-old losing his life in such an avoidable tragedy, The Crow became something of a novelty as a theatrical release. The odd circumstances of the star’s death combined with the supernatural aspect of the subject matter fostered an odd appeal that may not have existed for the title otherwise. While the production must have been a nightmare to complete without its titular lead, The Crow was a gothic story that had always been filmed with highlights on shadow and smoke. Lee himself was draped in costume, his face covered in make-up. The Crow was a comic book adaptation, after all.

The altered nature of Lee’s appearance allowed the production crew to perform the final scenes sans its lead actor. When the movie was released in theaters, few people could tell when Lee did and did not appear in a scene. The interest created by his death caused the movie to become a box office hit, one of the 25 most popular releases of 1994. It grossed $50.7 million domestically as well as $94 million overseas, a dazzling performance for a $23 million production. A blockbuster that has become a cult classic to boot, The Crow is unique over the past quarter century of cinema due to the death of its lead during filming. The Crow was an unheralded production whose fame was largely built upon calamity.

A less heralded yet similar instance occurred with The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. While everyone who has ever watched a movie knows by now that Heath Ledger died after filming The Dark Knight, few are aware of his follow-up project, a Terry Gilliam production that earned only $7.7 million in North America. The explanation for the movie’s domestic failure is simple. With Ledger passing away only a third of the way through the production, a series of stars including Johnny Depp stepped up to portray Ledger’s character at different points in the tale. The weirdness of the idea effectively sabotaged it before it had any hope of achieving popularity in North America.

On November 30, 2013, history repeated itself again. Paul Walker, the face of Fast and Furious franchise, died in a high speed car wreck. People have been captivated by the ensuing details of the story, primarily because of the nature of the actor’s death. The man whose career was predicated upon glamorizing driving cars recklessly became an unfortunate casualty as a passenger in the car of a friend going over 100 miles per hour. On a personal level, his death is terrible. From an industry perspective, it is a one of a kind event. A thespian dying midway through filming of a hugely popular franchise is historically unprecedented.

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