Philip Seymour Hoffman not only left behind grieving family members and fans, an absence that will be sharply felt in all the movies that will never have his unique, elevating presence, and a void that will be unfortunately filled with the yammering of Dr. Drew, it also left the future of many of his projects uncertain. Most immediately, Lionsgate has responded that the death of Hoffman would not affect the completion or release of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay movies, where he plays game master Plutarch Heavensbee. Hoffman had already finished shooting Part 1 of the two-part conclusion to the film series, and The Hollywood Reporter says he only had seven days left of shooting on the final movie. Producers will apparently work around that, as Lionsgate’s official statement offered only condolences and a testament to Hoffman’s talents, while the two films remain on track to be released on Nov. 21, 2014, and Nov. 20, 2015, respectively.
Hoffman’s other completed projects—Anton Corbijn’s A Most Wanted Man and the John Slattery-directed God’s Pocket—were both recently picked up at Sundance, where Hoffman showed up to promote them and participate in a few jovial video interviews, if you’re not already feeling sad enough today. But his death put a damper on similar plans to find distributors for Ezekiel Moss, a Depression-era drama that would have marked Hoffman’s return to directing after 2010’s Jack Goes Boating, and which had added Jake Gyllenhaal and Amy Adams to its cast barely 48 hours before the news broke. Producers are now said to be putting Ezekiel on hold while exploring “next steps.”
Most intriguingly, Hoffman was set to star in his first regular TV series role on Showtime’s Happyish, playing a man whose ad agency is taken over by much younger executives, and who then wages “a blistering attack on our youth-obsessed culture.” A pilot for the show co-starring Kathryn Hahn had already been shot, and the screening of just a few teaser scenes at the TCAs had the critics who saw it plenty excited about Hoffman’s performance. According to the L.A. Times, the series was still in the process of being written but had not yet begun production on its 10-episode order. And while Showtime hasn’t yet made a decision on its future, it seems unlikely that it could continue without him, as so much of the series was based around Hoffman’s unique presence. In other words, we can probably add it to the infinite pile of things that we would have liked to have seen Philip Seymour Hoffman in, but now never will.