10 Movies Where The Villain Was Dead All Along
2. Dr. Totenkopf - Sky Captain & The World Of Tomorrow
Cult sci-fi film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is one hell of an ambitious movie, and among its many attempts at technological innovation, its central villain, mad scientist Dr. Totenkopf, is played by Laurence Olivier, despite him being dead for well over a decade before shooting started.
Footage of Olivier in his youth was repurposed and manipulated for his role in the film, but in a somewhat perversely ironic feat of art imitating life, the character of Dr. Totenkopf is himself revealed to be dead at the end of the movie.
As the heroes breach Totenkopf's lair, they're greeted by a hologram of the man, before discovering his actual mummified corpse nearby.
As it turns out, Totenkopf died an entire two decades earlier, but his collection of machines have continued to work towards executing his master plan, to wipe out all life on Earth and start again from scratch.
Sky Captain may not be a great movie, and the ethics of using dead actors in new movies remains an absolute minefield even with estate approval, but that sure is a fascinatingly meta way to do it.