3) Oliver Reed – Gladiator
Filming for Ridley Scott’s epic Gladiator hit a major snag when Oliver Reed – who played the gruff mentor to Russell Crowe’s Maximus – sadly died of a heart attack on location in Malta. As the actor had yet to complete all his scenes as Proximo, a lot of work had to be put into digitally reconstituting his face for the remainder of the film.
Along with shooting body doubles in the shadows and the occasional use of a mannequin, the main method used was to map a three-dimensional computer-generated mask of Reed onto another actor. Overall, the cost for the tricky procedure is estimated to be about $3.2 million, even though it only accounted for about two minutes of footage in the final film.
“What we did was small compared to our other tasks on the film,” said visual effects supervisor John Nelson on the process. “What Oliver did was much greater. He gave an inspiring, moving performance. All we did was help him finish it.”