History DeadStarWalking / LiveActionFilms

** Perhaps the most impressive occurrence is in the [[Film/SupermanTheMovie 1978 movie]]; Creator/MarlonBrando received top billing, and what was at the time the highest salary ever paid to a motion picture actor, to play a character with 8 minutes of screen time who dies before the end of the first act. [The press coverage [as opposed to the studio publicity] at the time of the initial release talked extensively about Brando's big paycheck for so little screen time, so the audience wasn't completely unprepared. This may have also tipped off late-70s movie-goers not to expect too much from his appearance in ''Film/ApocalypseNow'' a few years later.) Furthermore, Christopher Reeve was relegated to ''third'' billing even though he plays the lead character of the film. Fortunately, people caught on quickly to how much he was responsible for making the film so good.

* Creator/LiamNeeson shows up long enough in ''Film/GangsOfNewYork'' to deliver a RousingSpeech and rally his men before his killed during the Battle of Five Points by Bill the Butcher.

** In [[Film/{{Scream 2}} the second film]], it's ''three'' dead stars walking -- Omar Epps and Creator/JadaPinkett are killed in the opening scene, and later, Creator/SarahMichelleGellar becomes Ghostface's first victim after the title card.

** In [[Film/{{Scream 2}} the second film]], it's ''three'' dead stars walking -- Omar Epps and Creator/JadaPinkett-Smith are killed in the opening scene, and later, Creator/SarahMichelleGellar becomes Ghostface's first victim after the title card.
** In [[Film/{{Scream 3}} the third film]], it's Creator/LievSchreiber, whose character from the first two films gets elevated to Opening Victim.
** [[Film/{{Scream 4}} The fourth film]] kills off five characters -- Creator/LucyHale, Shenae Grimes, Creator/AnnaPaquin, Aimee Teegarden, and Creator/BrittRobertson -- before the title card. (Though Paquin was not killed in the movie, but rather in the [[ShowWithinAShow movie within a movie]]... and Hale and Grimes bought it in the movie within a movie ''within a movie''.)

* Creator/ChristinaHendricks in ''Film/{{Drive}}''. Immediately after her character Blanche appears, the Driver's friend Standard (played by Creator/OscarIsaac) is gunned down. With (movie star) blood already spilled, The Driver interrogates her and demands her cooperation to escape the killers. Her agreement implies that Blanche is taking Standard's place as The Driver's partner and they will be working together through the rest of the plot. They do not, because she does not make it past the next scene. In a brutal aversion of PrettyLittleHeadshots, her life and their promised cooperation come to a sudden gruesome end.

** In ''Film/{{Alien 3}}'', Dr. Clemens (played by Creator/CharlesDance) is set up to be the main male character, but gets killed about an hour in, and Dillon takes over the role for the rest of the film.

* Angie Dickinson in Creator/BrianDePalma's ''Film/DressedToKill''. She's top-billed in the credits alongside Creator/MichaelCaine, but gets brutally murdered less than halfway into the movie. It's appropriate since ''Dressed To Kill'' is an overt homage to Hitchcock.

* ''Film/FreaksOfNature'': Creator/PattonOswalt plays a CrazySurvivalist that gets killed in the very same scene he is introduced. Also, Creator/VanessaHudgens dies halfway through the movie, but she is turned into a vampire instead and only appears again at the end.

* Creator/ChrisHemsworth's character establishes the resistance forces in ''Film/RedDawn2012''. A quarter into the film, he gets sniped in the head from out of nowhere when he takes a drink of beer.

* In the 2005 action film ''Film/{{Stealth}}'', Creator/JamieFoxx's character, Henry, is killed off suddenly while trying to pilot his aircraft through a canyon, less than halfway through the film. Although Stealth was made before ''Film/{{Ray}}'' (which was one of Foxx's breakout roles), the film was released afterwards, and shocked audiences who expected Foxx's character to survive.
* In ''Film/{{Stuber}}'', Creator/KarenGillan gets a bullet to the stomach 20 minutes in.

** [[Film/{{Scream 4}} The fourth film]] kills off five characters -- Creator/LucyHale, Shenae Grimes, Creator/AnnaPaquin, Aimee Teegarden, and Britt Robertson -- before the title card. (Though Paquin was not killed in the movie, but rather in the [[ShowWithinAShow movie within a movie]]... and Hale and Grimes bought it in the movie within a movie ''within a movie''.)

** [[Film/{{Scream 4}} The fourth film]] kills off five characters -- Creator/LucyHale, Shenae Grimes, Creator/AnnaPaquin, Aimee Teegarden, and Britt Robertson -- before the title card. (Though Paquin was not killed in the movie, but rather in the [[ShowWithinAShow movie within a movie]]...and Hale and Grimes bought it in the movie within a movie ''within a movie'').

* ''Film/BatmanBegins'': Creator/KenWatanabe was cast (with much publicity) as Ra's Al Ghul. Turns out he's an imposter who dies very early in the movie - an intentional deception to set up the twist to the mystery of exactly who the BigBad was toward the end.

* Creator/SamuelLJackson and Wrestling/TheRock are killed off early in ''Film/TheOtherGuys''. The film's [[TheZeppo Zeppo]] premise suggests it's coming, but the death scene itself is abrupt and senseless enough to be a surprise.

* In ''Film/{{Stuber}}'' Creator/KarenGillan gets a bullet to the stomach 20 minutes in.

* Creator/ChristinaHendricks in ''Film/{{Drive}}''. Immediately after her character appears, the Driver's friend Stannard (played by Creator/OscarIsaacs) is gunned down. With (movie star) blood already spilled, The Driver interrogates her and demands she help escape the killers. Her agreement implies that she is taking Stannard's place as The Driver's partner, and they will be working together through the rest of the plot. They do not, because she does not make it past the next scene. In a brutal aversion of PrettyLittleHeadshots, her life and their promised cooperation come to a sudden gruesome end.

* In ''Film/{{Solo}}, Val is portrayed by Creator/ThandieNewton and was fairly prominent in advertising leading up to the film's release; however in the film itself she's killed off less than half-way through, partly to show that AnyoneCanDie in her line of work. Writer Jonathan Kasdan actually stated he regretted not giving Val more screentime, feeling that Newton's casting gave viewers an unfair expectation of the character's prominence.

* Franco Nero in ''Sacra Corona'' gets killed off in the first two minutes, after maybe two lines. Then he gets a second appearance as a ghost, with barely a few lines. He also happens to be one of the four characters on the cover, next to TheHero, TheLancer and the BigBad, despite there being countless other characters who had a much greater impact on the plot.

** Doc (Creator/KieferSutherland) dies midway through the [[Film/YoungGunsII second film]], in a HeroicSacrifice to allow his friends to escape. Notably, Sutherland's character (Doc) was supposed to survive the shootout and leave the country with his bride in the screenplay, but he insisted that he would only return if they killed off his character.

** ''Film/{{Prometheus}}'' subverts this. The audience is told that Peter Weyland (Creator/GuyPearce) died sometime during the crew's trip to the Engineer planet, with his only scene in the film (not counting the ViralMarketing TED Talk) being a [[PosthumousCharacter posthumous briefing]] on what they should expect to find. Then its revealed two-thirds of the way through the movie that he's NotQuiteDead, and has been in hypersleep aboard the titular ship for the entire trip. He gets a few more minutes of screentime before being unceremoniously offed by the Engineer.

* Creator/GwynethPaltrow in ''Film/{{Contagion}}'', who is first introduced sneezing and coughing at an airport in Chicago, and, when she arrives home minutes into the film, she is rushed to a hospital, where she convulses and dies. The only footage seen of her afterwards is an autopsy scene (where doctors [[GoryDiscretionShot cut her skull open]]) and a flashback at the end of the film to how the virus was transmitted to her. Likewise, Creator/KateWinslet appears for a few minutes as a CDC researcher working to investigate the cure, but she gets infected and is rushed to a quarantine zone, and is only seen some time later when she tries to give a patient a blanket before dying.

** Even earlier than that, there's Creator/StellanSkarsgard's character, who is set up to be one of the leads. He's gravely injured by a shark, sent away via helicopter for medical treatment ... and then the gurney he's being airlifted away in gets snatched by a shark, shoved into the main viewing port of the facility, and he dies due to a combination of his injuries, shock and blood loss.

* Angie Dickinson in Creator/BrianDePalma's ''Film/DressedToKill''. She's top-billed in the credits alongside Creator/MichaelCaine, but gets brutally murdered less than halfway into the movie. It's appropriate, since ''Dressed To Kill'' is an overt homage to Hitchcock.

* Creator/TomHanks in the film adaptation of ''Literature/ExtremelyLoudAndIncrediblyClose''. His character (Thomas Schell) mostly appears in flashbacks, and it's revealed that he died (offscreen) because he was inside the World Trade Center during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

* Creator/BruceCampbell in ''Film/FromDuskTillDawn2TexasBloodMoney''. He received top billing, but not only does he die very quickly, his "death" is part of an in-film movie that a character is watching.
* Creator/LiamNeeson shows up long enough in ''Film/GangsOfNewYork'' to deliver a RousingSpeech and rally his men, before his killed during the Battle of Five Points by Bill the Butcher.

** Creator/JulietteBinoche (Sandra Brody) only appears in a prologue sequence at the beginning of the film, and dies after being locked inside a chamber as it floods with radiation due to a failsafe mechanism. Notably, when Binoche was asked about her experience making the film, [[https://www.cinemablend.com/new/Read-Juliette-Binoche-Blunt-Harsh-Assessment-Shooting-Godzilla-67844.html she said]] "I don't know how much fun you can have when you have to die in two seconds, and you're the one real woman character and you're dead in three minutes and 45 seconds."

* Music/JenniferLopez in ''Film/JerseyGirl''; not only does Lopez get second billing in promotional material, but upon first glance she appears to be the title character of the movie. Ten minutes in, she dies during childbirth -- and we find out that her ''daughter'' is arguably the title character. After the "Bennifer" craze sprung up, the studio made Creator/KevinSmith film more scenes so that they could push J-Lo's death to halfway through the film, which would have totally undone the whole point of the story. Fortunately the failure of ''Film/{{Gigli}}'' combined with Creator/BenAffleck and Lopez ending their relationship let Smith go back to his original idea. It also meant they had to spoil the death in the advertising to make it seem less like ''Film/{{Gigli}}''.

* ''Film/NurseBetty'': Creator/AaronEckhart plays the redneck boyfriend of the title character ... for all of 20 minutes, until he gets half his scalp ripped off and is shot as he pitifully tries to crawl away from the contract killers played by Creator/ChrisRock and Creator/MorganFreeman.

** [[Film/{{Scream 4}} The fourth film]] kills off five characters -- Creator/LucyHale, Shenae Grimes, Creator/AnnaPaquin, Aimee Teegarden, and Britt Robertson -- before the title card. (Though Paquin was not killed in the movie, but in the [[ShowWithinAShow movie within a movie]]... and Hale and Grimes bought it in the movie within a movie ''within a movie'').

* Creator/PiperLaurie was billed third in Creator/DarioArgento's ''Film/{{Trauma}}''. She dies in the first twenty minutes. [[spoiler: Turns out not only is she NotQuiteDead, she is the ''killer''.]]

* ''Film/{{Vlad}}'' featured Creator/BillyZane in the poster as if he was the main protagonist. Not only does he amount to a side character, he gets killed off by {{Dracula}} halfway through the movie.

** In [[Film/{{Scream 2}} the second film]], it's ''three'' dead stars walking -- Omar Epps and Creator/JadaPinkettSmith are killed in the opening scene, and later, Creator/SarahMichelleGellar becomes Ghostface's first victim after the title card.