Died at 80
male
Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman (February 21, 1946 – January 14, 2016) was an English actor and director. Known for his deep, languid voice, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), performing in modern and classical theatre productions. He played the Vicomte de Valmont in the RSC stage production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses in 1985, and after the production transferred to the West End in 1986 and Broadway in 1987, he was nominated for a Tony Award. Rickman's first cinema role came when he was cast as the German terrorist leader Hans Gruber in Die Hard (1988). He also appeared as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), for which he received the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role; Elliott Marston in Quigley Down Under (1990); Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991); Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility (1995); Eamon DeValera in Michael Collins (1997); Alexander Dane in Galaxy Quest (1999); Metatron in Dogma (1999); Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series (2001–2011); Harry in Love Actually (2003); Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005); and Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007). Rickman made his television acting debut playing Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet (1978) as part of the BBC's Shakespeare series. His breakthrough role was in the BBC television adaptation of The Barchester Chronicles (1982). He later starred in television films, playing the title character in Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny (1996), which won him a Golden Globe Award, an Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and Alfred Blalock in Something the Lord Made (2004). Rickman died of pancreatic cancer on 14 January 2016 at age 69. His final film roles were as Lieutenant General Frank Benson in the thriller Eye in the Sky (2015), and reprising his role as the voice of the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland (2010) in Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016).
Alan Rickman
Stephen Strange
for Stephen Strange in Doctor Strange (1995)
Suggested by sebastianemond
Attempting to get a film based on the popular Marvel comic book character Doctor Strange off the ground prior to 2016 was a lengthy and troubling development, with numerous studios, writers, directors, and producers coming and going on the project, such as Alex Cox, David S. Goyer, Bob Gale, Neil Gaiman, Guillermo del Toro, Michael France, Stephen Norrington, and Chuck Russell. One of the great what-ifs of the development process was a version that was to have been written and directed by horror maestro Wes Craven for the short-lived independent film studio Savoy Pictures, in what would've been his second major superhero film after the 1982 live-action feature film adaptation of the DC comic book character Swamp Thing. Aside from the project being announced in 1992 for a planned 1995 release, little is known about what Craven would've done with the master of the mystic arts, though no doubt many of his frequent collaborators would've also joined in, including score composer J. Peter Robinson, film editor Patrick Lussier, production designer Cynthia Kay Charette, and cinematographer Mark Irwin. Alas, Craven's take on the sorcerer supreme would forever remain unproduced, as he would instead direct the likes of New Nightmare, Vampire in Brooklyn, and Scream. Follow me and ponder the question, "What if...?"
