Heath Ledger

Heath Ledger returns to life this Christmas.

The beloved actor, who appeared posthumously--and quite laudably--as the Joker in the most recent installment of the Batman franchise, is reborn via “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” which is set to open Dec. 25 in the US, and hit theaters worldwide on Jan. 2010.

It is said that the Terry Gilliam-directed movie was almost scrapped because the late actor finished only two-thirds when he unexpectedly passed away on Jan. 22, 2008.

Grief-stricken, Terry thought the project was over and decided to simply stop production which began rolling in 2007.

“Half the part’s done and, what do you do? What do you do? I couldn’t, for the first couple of days. I said, ‘This is ridiculous.’ The challenge was actually to see if I could resuscitate my interest in the thing because I just thought, ‘It’s over’ I didn’t even want to continue because Heath was so important,” he confessed during the Comic-Con 2009.

Thanks to the encouragement he got from people, Terry had the script modified so they were able to resume shooting in March 2008.

Terry initially wanted to utilize computer generated imagery (CGI) a la Brad Pitt's transformation in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” Instead, he opted for human-generated acting in the persons of Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law.

The idea was executed convincingly.

Heath’s character, Tony, is a mysterious outsider who, upon joining the troupe of the strange Dr. Parnassus was able to travel into bizarre dimensions through a "magic mirror." It is during his travels that his appearance will change.

Tony will go on to save Parnassus’ daughter, Valentina, whose own father, Mr. Nick, will make her a sacrificial lamb to the Devil in exchange for perpetual youth.

In completing the remaining third of the film, Terry revealed he chose three brilliant actors “who were close friends of Heath's so they know [him].”

“Then we gave them all DVDs of what we'd been able to assemble of what Heath had done so they can see what he was doing, how he was moving and how he was talking and everything.”

Albeit they had little time to rehearse, the trio delivered extraordinary performances.

“It's really brave of them,” said Terry. “It's extraordinarily brave because they could have just fallen flat on their faces. I thought out [that] maybe this was the way we could pull this thing off. I wasn't certain."

Terry maintained that the ominous references to death in the film does not reference Heath’s demise because he did not rewrite the film.

“Everything you hear [in the film including] the dialogue was all written before. That speech that Johnny gives about the young dying, some people think that's a eulogy to Heath. No. That was [already] written,” he stressed.

“There are words in there that are shocking because they seem to be so prescient. And everybody thought we wrote this and that as a sort of eulogy to Heath, but nope.

“[And then] there is one line that Chris Plummer didn’t want to say, ‘...A tale of romance, of comedy, of unforeseen death...' He didn’t want to say it and I said, ‘You’ve got to, this is the movie that Heath and I were making, so say the words…it got done somehow and now when people look at it, they can’t believe it wasn’t intended,” he related.

Terry was moved that everyone kept committed to the film if only for the love of the actor.

“Everyone in the cast and everyone in the crew were determined that this film would be finished and everybody worked longer, harder and somehow we got through. It was really… people's love for Heath that propelled this thing forward," he told “National Post.”

To show their love for the late actor, the ending credits changed from “A Terry Gilliam film” to “A film from Heath Ledger and friends.”