Rage and Fury: Bruce Lee's Return to Film?

Digital Bruce Lee Kicks into Theatres in 2007

It started with video games. Game makers hired stars, then took their likenesses and digitally painted them into games. Bruce Willis was one of the first recruited for a video game called Apocalypse, with others following like martial arts star Jet Li who was "scanned" into a computer, then processed digitally. However now, director Rob Cohen will attempt something much more ambitious. He'll be using cutting edge technology to allow deceased star Bruce Lee to once again star in a feature film.

The movie called, Rage And Fury marks the second time Cohen has done a feature involving the legendary Bruce Lee. The first was Lee's biopic, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story which starred Jason Scott Lee and received critical acclaim and box office success. Now Cohen intends on creating a whole new story with Lee leading the action.

DreamWorks will produce and Lee's family is whole-heartedly endorsing the project.  Apparently the pre-production includes exhaustive tests of the digital techniques utilized to achieve a perfect photo realistic Bruce Lee actor. Only until Cohen, producers and the Lee estate is satisfied with the CGI Bruce, will the film move forward.

Obviously this project brings up all sorts of fascinating questions.

Who's next? John Wayne?  Marilyn Monroe?  Steve McQueen?  What deceased celebrity estate will endorse the next digital full-blown resurrection of a star?

We've actually seen John Wayne, Fred Astaire, even Marilyn "star" in TV ads. These were utilized with old film clips, digitally cleaning them up and inserting them into new footage. The film Forrest Gump used a similar process to have the title character interact with everyone from John F. Kennedy, to civil rights leaders, to sports greats.  All these examples were either short form or employed as supporting bits to expand other stories.  Now with Rage And Fury, the bold move of bringing back the likeness of a deceased celebrity will most likely debut in theatres as a major motion picture.