Following the shocking and tragic death of Philip Seymour Hoffman earlier this year, there were some questions raised about what would become of his performances in the two "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay" films. The actor still had some work left to do, and there were some suggestions made at the time by sources at Lionsgate to Hollywood trades that some digital magic might be used to complete his scenes, but fear not, as wiser heads have prevailed and there will be no CGI Hoffman.
“He had two scenes with dialogue that were left and we decided we didn’t want to try any digital trickery with him, so we rewrote his scenes and gave the dialogue to other actors,” director Francis Lawrence explained of the situation to Huffington Post. And the filmmaker adds that there wasn’t much debate in terms of whether or not to try create Hoffman’s Plutarch Heavensbee with ones and zeroes.
“I just think to try to fake a Philip Seymour Hoffman performance would have been catastrophic and I would never want to do that,” Lawrence said.
So, what you’ll be seeing in ‘Mockingjay’ is some of the last work from Hoffman, unaltered. The sequel opens this Friday, November 21st. Check out a new clip and two new TV spots below.