The Return of River Phoenix

In 1993, actor River Phoenix died of a drug overdose in Hollywood. He was 23 years old. At the time of his passing, he had an impressive body of work with roles in STAND BY ME, THE MOSQUITO COAST, and a memorable turn as a teenaged Indiana Jones in THE LAST CRUSADE.

At the time of his passing, he was filming DARK BLOOD with director George Sluizer, and that film has remained unfinished for nearly 20 years. Until now. Sluizer has announced that he has re-edited the film and with additional voiceover work, believes it is good enough to be released. Sluizer has stated he plans to ask River’s brother Joaquin Phoenix to finish voiceover as River’s character.

Messing with an actor’s legacy can be a sensitive business. Many people tend to sentimentalize their movies and their actors, and want nothing to alter to that. Many circles on the internet are already calling for things to be left well enough alone, even going as far as crying graverobber. Many do not want to see this film, as they would rather keep their final memories of River…final.



Folk need to realize that it could be worse, and this gets into a larger issue. With the rapidly advancing CGI/Motion Capture technology, it would be a near-simple thing for filmmakers to resurrect ANY actor. There are certainly moral and ethical issues here (along with legal), but the possibilities would be absolutely endless. Imagine seeing a young River in another teenage Indy adventure, or one last look at him as Chris Chambers in the STAND BY ME universe.

And this can be taken a step further. How about seeing Christopher Reeves reprise Superman, or Marlon Brando reprising Vito Corleone?

Whether or not such approaches can work depends on how tastefully it’s done. And therein lays the rub. Motion Capture (at least for now) is often criticized for characters that look lifeless. Seeing a deceased actor in a poorly renditioned CGI blob would offend a hell of a lot of people.

So thankfully, this is not the approach that George Sluizer or anyone else is taking, and the aforementioned word, “tastefully” seems to be the key term here. Sluizer is mostly known in America (he is a Dutch filmmaker) for THE VANISHING, with Jeff Bridges and Kiefer Sutherland, which performed poorly financially and was reviewed even worse. But Sluizer does have a lot of years under his belt; he is 79 years old, which gives him the mature patience that a tender project like this would need.

If all the pieces fall into place, DARK BLOOD would be released sometime next year. This blogger would like to see that talented kid just one last time. As a lover of film, seeing a movie that was shot 20 years ago and never seen is just fascinating. Almost like finding buried treasure.

What say you? Is this blasphemy? Would you go see it? Should things be left as we remember them?