Heath Ledger's final film, 'The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,' still in limbo

On the heels of Heath Ledger’s posthumous Best Supporting Actor Oscar win for The Dark Knight, interest has spiked in the late actor’s still-unreleased final film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, but at this point its fate is still up in the air. Ledger was midway through shooting director Terry Gilliam’s fantasy film when he died in January of 2008; after nearly scrapping the partially completed project, Gilliam wound up recruiting Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law to fill out Ledger’s role. Rumor has it the movie may make its debut at the Cannes Film Festival in May, but as of now it still has no distributor or release date. (One scribe at The Hollywood Reporter speculates that Gilliam’s typically bizarro vision may make the film a hard sell.)

Late last December, Gilliam told EW that he was hoping Parnassus could come out this spring, but he seemed perfectly content (even gleeful) to sit and wait until a suitable distributor came calling. “My attitude is: We don’t have to worry about it,” Gilliam said. “I think people are going to be astonished when they see the film, and there will be a rush to want it. So I’m happy to wait. We have a film with Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law, and no deal. Isn’t that great? Nobody came forward at the right time — and now it’s going to cost them.”