In the aftermath of Heath Ledger’s death, we wondered whether the Terry Gilliam Curse had struck again. Ledger had completed only a few weeks of shooting on Gilliam’s latest phantasmagoric epic, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and it looked like the project was headed towards the same dead end as the director’s ill-fated The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.

Perhaps inspired by the multiple Dylans of I’m Not There — one of which was played by Ledger — Gilliam has hit on an ingenious solution to his dilemma. According to Variety (which cites Ain’t It Cool News as its only source, so take it with however many grains of salt you feel necessary), Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell have all signed on to fill Ledger’s shoes. How will this work? Apparently "Ledger's character is transported into three separate dimensions in the fantasy pic; these new worlds, which Ledger accesses via a paranormal mirror, will now be inhabited by Depp, Law, and Farrell."

While I’m Not There may have sparked the idea, the above explanation calls to mind another possible inspiration: longtime BBC staple Doctor Who. As you may recall, the Doctor is a Time Lord with the convenient ability to regenerate into a new incarnation. Each time he does this, a new actor is cast in the role. It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine Gilliam running into one Doctor or another backstage at the BBC back in his Monty Python days. In fact, the late Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams wrote for both shows, so there’s your connection right there. That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.