Ledger’s death fans mania for ‘Dark Knight’

Ledger — known for serious films including “Brokeback Mountain,” which earned him a best-actor Academy Award nomination — was a surprise choice for the Joker, most famously played previously with Jack Nicholson’s giddy performance in 1989’s “Batman.”

Nolan, Ledger and their collaborators came up with a wildly different Joker, whose ominous clown makeup seems to have been finger-painted onto his face, an outer portrait of the black and twisted soul within.

Ledger’s performance floored two-time Oscar winner Michael Caine, who reprises his role as Bruce Wayne’s butler, Alfred. Caine’s first glimpse of the character came when Ledger emerged onto the set from an elevator; in an interview last September, four months before Ledger’s death, Caine said he was so startled that he forgot his lines.

“He came out of the bloody lift like a whirlwind,” Caine recalled. “They said, ‘It’s your line, Michael.’ I said, ‘What is it?’ Extraordinary. It will be one of the characters of next year, the Joker as played by him.”

Warner Bros. executives, who declined to comment for this article, have moved ahead with “The Dark Knight” and its marketing as planned. To do anything differently would have disrespected Ledger’s memory, the filmmakers said.

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“The greatest testament to Heath’s portrayal is to do everything that we were planning on doing with Heath’s portrayal,” said producer Charles Roven. “His family knew him to feel exactly the same way. They knew how excited he was, knew how much fun he had doing it. When you see the film, it’s undeniable how much fun he had playing the character.”

Mixed history
While the “Batman” brand-name virtually assures blockbuster status for “The Dark Knight,” other posthumous films have had a mixed history.

Rogers scored a posthumous hit with “Steamboat Round the Bend,” as did Tracy with “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”

Bruce Lee’s “Enter the Dragon” and Brandon Lee’s “The Crow” found broader audiences beyond action crowds because of their deaths. Singer Aaliyah’s “Queen of the Damned” overcame bad reviews to become a modest commercial success.

Received coolly by critics, John Candy’s “Canadian Bacon” and “Wagons East” were box-office duds, as was Natalie Wood’s “Brainstorm.”

The final films of Lombard (“To Be or Not to Be”) and husband Gable (“The Misfits”) earned critical acclaim and have held up over the decades but initially were disregarded by audiences.

Unlike Oliver Reed, whose death during the filming of “Gladiator” prompted the filmmakers to digitally graft his head onto another man’s body to complete a scene, Ledger had finished his work on “The Dark Knight.”

Ledger died with his final film, Terry Gilliam’s fantasy “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” only half finished. Gilliam salvaged the production by casting Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell for the fantasy portions, each playing Ledger’s character on trips through a magic mirror into a parallel realm.

The snippets of Ledger’s “Dark Knight” performance released in trailers have captivated not only the average fan, but also his close colleagues from past films.

“You can tell Jack Nicholson was having fun doing that, but you can see Heath probably put his soul into it,” said “Brokeback Mountain” director Ang Lee. “That’s why it’s scary. You see the trailer, just a few shots of him, you have to see the movie. ... I’m anxious to see it. I’m afraid to see it. I don’t know how I’ll respond to it, but you have to see it.”

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