'Charles Bronson' makes new Death Wish film

They say when a person dies that he is "at rest". Well, Charles Bronson, who died in 2003, must have rested up real good, because he's "back," appearing in a Death Wish clone called Death Kiss.

Have a look:

Now, I know what you're thinking -- that this is a CGI recreation, with another actor with Charles Bronson's face.

You couldn't be more wrong.

All kidding aside, this is a living, flesh and blood actor named Robert Bronzi, who has the same exact phenotype as Charles Bronson. That's his real face.

Nowadays dead actors are recreated using CGI, such as Peter Cushing's Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One. But a much simpler solution is to find another actor who looks the same. When Doctor Who wanted to bring back William Harknell, who played the first Doctor, they simply hired Game of Thrones actor David Bradley, who happened to look like him.

 

Ironically, when a series is "rebooted" an actor is usually selected who looks nothing like the original character he plays, the most recent and notorious example being Chris Pine playing Captain Kirk. In this case it doesn't appear that the makers of Death Kiss have the rights to the Death Wish series, so they gave the title a different name, but it seems clear that they are trading on the image of Charles Bronson.

Does Bronson's estate or the owners of Death Wish have a copyright infringement claim? Perhaps. Either can argue that Death Kiss is attempting to profit off of Bronson's image. The counterargument, of course, is that actor Robert Bronzi cannot help that he looks like Charles Bronson. In fact, he even sounds like Charles Bronson, minus the accent:

Ironically there was just a remake of Death Wish with Bruce Willis and his very shiny head playing the Charles Bronson role (which got a 17% score on RottenTomatoes). This unauthorized remake, I'm guessing, will probably do better simply because audiences will be curious to see "Charles Bronson" in action again.

What do you think? Since there apparently are federal and state laws against making original films in Hollywood, would you like to see films remade with lookalikes? What would you like to see? Will you go see Death Kiss?

I'll leave you with not another perfect lookalike but rather a perfect soundalike. Imagine someone who sounds exactly like Freddy Mercury, but hasn't died of AIDS? Here he is:

 

Ed Straker is the senior writer at Newsmachete.com.

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