Production on Fast & Furious 7 has been put on hold ever since the tragic death of lead actor Paul Walker last month. While screenwriter Chris Morgan has been working on a rewrite of the film’s script, the producers are currently contemplating ways that they could potentially continue shooting the movie without the beloved star.
Today, Screen Rant is reporting that according to a source who is close to the production, the producers have approached Cody Walker (seen in the picture above on the left), the stunt double and younger brother of Paul Walker, and have asked him to take over his brother’s role of Brian O’Conner. It should be noted that this supposed source is unnamed and because of that, the story should be taken with a grain of salt until Universal confirms it.
Reportedly, Cody Walker bears a pretty decent resemblance to his late brother, which could allow for a fairly convincing, if not completely seamless transition between the two actors. If the producers agree to use this method, Cody Walker will be used primarily for shooting from behind as well as wide shots. Any close ups will employ the use of computer graphics in order to superimpose Walker’s face onto his brother’s body.
Methods like this have been used by Hollywood before. During the production of The Crow, Brandon Lee’s face was superimposed onto a stunt double’s body after he tragically died during filming. And of course, we all know that Ridley Scott spent millions of dollars during post production on his historical epic Gladiator to place Oliver Reed’s face onto the body of a stand in after the actor passed away from a heart attack during filming.
We’ll keep you posted when we hear more on this but for now, tell us, do you think it’s a good idea for Cody to replace his brother Paul in Fast & Furious 7?
