An actor or someone who worked on a film or some other type of media has been dead for some time and the project they worked on have come out, but they will still get credit for their contributions.
This is pointing out those who died and contributed for a media project released after their death.
They often happen to be dedicated to those who died.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Phil Hartman recorded for the English dub of Kiki's Delivery Service. He received a posthumous credit when the movie was released to VHS a few months after his wife killed him in a murder-suicide.
- You Inoue had died in 2003, before the Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: A New Translation Compilation Movies were created, but she was nevertheless credited as portraying Sayla Mass for the character's cameo in the third thanks to the use of archived audio of the character.
- Nippon Television Network chairman Seiichiro Ujiie served as a member of the production committee for From Up on Poppy Hill and was the executive producer of The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, both of which came out after his death.
- Unshou Ishizuka voiced the narrator in the anime adaptation of Ulysses: Jeanne d'Arc and the Alchemist Knights, which premiered two months after his death from esophageal cancer.
- Bob Magruder, who voiced the narrator and Igneel in Funimation's dub of Fairy Tail, managed to complete all of his dialogue for the sixth season before he died in January 2015. Thus, he's given a posthumous credit for the fifteenth Blu-ray/DVD release.
- Takeshi Shudō, who wrote Pokémon: The First Movie, is credited as a writer for 2019's Mewtwo Strikes Back Evolution, despite having died in 2010.
- Kinryu Arimoto, who voiced Tomomi Masaoka, died on February 1, 2019, weeks before the release of Psycho-pass Sinners of the System: First Guardian where Masaoka was one of the main characters
Films — Animation
- Roddy McDowall voiced the queen's adviser in A Bug's Life, which was released a month after his death.
- While The Little Mermaid was in Development Hell in the late 1930s, Kay Nielsen helped create concept art for the proposed production. When the film went into full production in the 1980s, Nielsen's work was used as inspiration for the film's design, and he received a posthumous "visual development" credit.
- The Rescuers:
- John Lounsbery died before the release of the film, which he co-directed.
- Also, Joe Flynn, the voice of Mr. Snoops, died three years before it was released.
- John Fiedler appeared in two more films after his death in 2005, Kronk's New Groove and Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie.
- George O'Hanlon and Mel Blanc died during the production of Jetsons: The Movie. Jeff Bergman filled in for them as George Jetson and Mr. Spacely to record lines they hadn't recorded yet.
- Anne Bancroft died three years before the release of Delgo.
- The Thief and the Cobbler:
- Vincent Price died in 1993 before the release, the dialogue for which he recorded twenty years before.
- Also five of the veteran animators who worked on the film, Ken Harris, Art Babbitt, Emery Hawkins, Grim Natwick, and Cliff Nordberg, had since passed away; all except Natwick were credited in "The Princess and the Cobbler" cut.
- Joe Ranft died in 2005, before the releases of Cars (for which he was a writer and co-director) and Corpse Bride (for which he was an executive producer).
- Bernie Mac died before the release of Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.
- Fred Moore died in 1952, but he was credited on Peter Pan and the shorts The Simple Things, Football (Now and Then) and Casey Bats Again.
- Jim Varney passed away in 2000, nearly a year and a half before the release of Atlantis: The Lost Empire in which he provided the voice of Cookie. Additional dialogue that had yet to be recorded prior to his death was provided by Steve Barr.
- Rod Scribner died in 1976. The Peanuts movie Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown, which he provided animation for, was released two years later.
- Mako Iwamatsu died more than one year before the release of TMNT, on which he voiced Splinter.
- Animator Don Williams who was most well known for his work for Walter Lantz and Looney Tunes passed away in 1980, two films he had worked on prior to The Grinch Grinches The Cat In The Hat and Heidi's Song'' were both released in 1982.
- Orson Welles voiced Unicron in The Transformers: The Movie, which was released about a year after his death.
- Joe Alaskey, who voiced the Wizard of Oz, Butch, and Droopy in Tom and Jerry: The Wizard of Oz, reprised all these roles in the sequel Tom and Jerry: Return to Oz, which was released several months after his death.
- Verna Felton (who voiced Winifred Hathi the Elephant) died of a stroke on December 14th, 1966, a year before the release of The Jungle Book.
- Joseph Kaufmann who voiced the main character Michael Corleone in Heavy Traffic was killed in a plane crash two weeks before the film was released in theaters.
- Animator Cliff Nordberg died in 1979, his last project for Disney was The Fox and the Hound which was released two years later.
- Mary Kay Bergman died in 1999 but Balto II: Wolf Quest came out in 2002. Her fox character is one of her last credited roles.
- Both of child actress Judith Barsis voice over roles for Don Bluths The Land Before Time and All Dogs Go to Heaven were released after she was murdered by her father, the former was released 4 months after and the other a year later.
- Don Rickles, who voiced Mr. Potato Head in the Toy Story series, died of kidney failure in April 2017, two years before the release of Toy Story 4. He had not recorded any new dialogue for the movie prior to his death, yet Pixar was reluctant to recast the role. With the blessing of Rickles' estate, a new performance was constructed using years worth of unusued recordings from Rickles portraying the character.
- Pixar gave a similar posthumous credit to Paul Newman reprising his role as Doc Hudson in Cars 3, released almost 10 years after his death, with his performance consisting of unusued dialogue from the first film.
Films — Live-Action
- Brandon Lee was credited on The Crow, the film whose set he died on.
- Phil Hartman received a posthumous credit on Small Soldiers.
- Edward G. Robinson died five months before the release of Soylent Green.
- Spencer Tracy died six months before the release of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.
- Whitney Houston died six months before Sparkle came out. The movie had been in Development Hell since The '90s.
- Jonathan Winters was credited on The Smurfs 2, which was released three months after his death.
- Raúl Juliá died two months before Street Fighter was released.
- Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes (who had a cameo role) both died within a day of each other 3 months before Soul Men premiered. The movie was re-edited to have a lighter tone and had a tribute added to the credits sequence out of respect to them.
- The Strongest Man in the World was released in 1975, a year after Joe Flynn's death.
- Chris Farley was credited for Almost Heroes and Dirty Work which were released after his death from a cocaine overdose.
- Centennial Summer was released after the death of its composer, Jerome Kern.
- "A Kiss to Build a Dream On" from The Strip was one of the Academy's nominees for Best Original Song of 1951. The song was written by Oscar Hammerstein II, Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby; Kalmar died in 1947, though the song was not a Posthumous Collaboration: it was actually a Cut Song from A Night at the Opera salvaged from the MGM trunk.
- While on posthumous songwriting noms, Howard Ashman died four months before Beauty and the Beast was released, and while Aladdin was still in production (forcing Alan Menken to make extra songs with another lyricist, Tim Rice). Beast got Ashman three noms and one win ("Beauty and the Beast"), and Aladdin another one year later ("Friend Like Me", losing to one of the Rice compositions, "A Whole New World").
- Jill Clayburgh died six months before Bridesmaids opened.
- Heather O'Rourke died four months before Poltergeist III was released. The film was dedicated to her memory.
- Heath Ledger died on January 22nd, 2008. Two films he had starred in were released posthumously. They are The Dark Knight and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, released in America on July 18th, 2008 and January 8th, 2010, respectively. Though in the latter's case, Ledger was replaced for various scenes with Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law as his character travels through a dream world.
- Mickey Rooney passed away in April 2014. His last film, Night at the Museum: Secret Of The Tomb, was released that December.
- Secret of the Tomb is also one of four postumous roles for Robin Williams (the others were A Merry Friggin' Christmas, Boulevard, and Absolutely Anything).
- Alan Rickman died in January 2016, months before the Alice in Wonderland (2010) sequel Through the Looking Glass was released. So, even if his role is voice-only, he's billed third overall (two above the actress playing the title character!).
- Anton Yelchin died in June 2016, two months before the premiere of Star Trek Beyond, in which he plays Chekov. The movie was dedicated to him, as well as Leonard Nimoy (who died before production started).
- Carrie Fisher passed away in December 2016, almost a year before the release of Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi in December 2017. The end credits include a dedication.
- The BFG, which was released in July 2016, was Melissa Mathison's last screenplay before her death in November 2015.
- Bruce Lee passed away a month before Enter the Dragon was released, also Game of Death which he had been working on prior to his death was released 5 years later with the story rewritten and many of his scenes were comprised of stock footage from his previous films.
- Douglas Adams is credited as executive producer for the 2005 film The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which entered production in 2003 - two years after Adams' death.
- Aaliyah died in a plane crash six months before Queen of the Damned was released.
Live-Action TV
- Judith Barsi was credited on the Growing Pains Series Finale in a flashback, three years after her murder.
- One of the leads on the HBO series Silicon Valley, Christopher Evan Welch, died of lung cancer in December 2013, 4 months before the series' premiere. At the time of his death, only 5 of the 8 planned episodes had been shot. According to show creator Mike Judge, instead of recasting him, his character was written out of the last few episodes. They did a proper death and funeral for his character in the next season.
- The 2017 revival of Twin Peaks features several deceased actors who either appear in archival footage from the original series (as with Frank Silva) or filmed their scenes for Season 3 before their passing (as with Catherine E. Coulson, Miguel Ferrer, and Warren Frost). One notably unique case reuses archival footage of David Bowie as Phillip Jeffries from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, but at Bowie's own request, his voice is overdubbed by an actual Louisianan actor (presumably due to Bowie's dissatisfaction with his own attempt at a Louisianan dialect). Some of the episodes in which these characters appear are dedicated to their memory.
Theater
- The co-librettist of the 1946 Broadway musical St. Louis Woman, Countee Cullen, died shortly before rehearsals began.
- Clifford Odets died during the first week of rehearsals of The Musical adaptation of his play Golden Boy. Odets nevertheless remained the only credited librettist until William Gibson, with considerable misgivings, agreed to rewrite the show during its troubled tryout.
Video Games
- Mike Pilotti worked in the color animation cells for first two games of Earthworm Jim but died victim of an Avalanche before the release of the second game. The credits of the second game was dedicated to him.
- Robin Sachs, voice of Zaeed in the Mass Effect trilogy, died a month before the final DLC for the third game, Citadel, was released.
- Wayne Allwine passed away in May 2009, but completed voice work as Mickey Mouse one final time for Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days which was released the following fall, as well as for episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
- Miyu Matsuki passed away in October 2015, but managed to complete her voice work for Chihaya Mifune in Persona 5, which was released in September 2016.
- Satoru Iwata passed away in June 2015, but still served and was credited as executive producer for a number of Nintendo titles that ended up being released posthumously, some coming out months or even years after his passing.
- Taken Up to Eleven with Fire Emblem Fates. Rokuro Naya, the Japanese voice of Gunter, passed away two months before the game was even announced, let alone released.
- Unshou Ishizuka passed away four months before the release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, in which he voiced Incineroar. Before passing away, he also completed the voiceworks for Brad Wong in Dead or Alive 6 as well as Jet Black in his appearance in Super Robot Wars T
Web Animation
Western Animation
- The Simpsons:
- Eartha Kitt recorded her voice for the episode "Once Upon a Time in Springfield", which aired more than a year after her death in December 2008.
- Writer Don Payne, who died in March 2013, was credited on the episodes "Labor Pains" and "White Christmas Blues".
- Phil Hartman's last Simpsons appearance was playing Troy McClure in "Bart the Mother", which aired five months after his death in May 1998. The episode was dedicated to him and his characters Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure were retired.
- Marvin Hamlisch played a younger version of himself in "Gone Abie Gone", which aired 3 months after his passing in August 2012.
- Mary Kay Bergman received a few credits after her suicide, including the South Park episodes "Starvin Marvin in Space" and "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics" and the direct-to-video films Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders and Balto II: Wolf Quest.
- Family Guy: Carrie Fisher had the recurring role of Angela until she suddenly passed away in December 2016. According to Seth MacFarlane, she recorded dialogue for least two more episodes, but has yet to decide what should happen to Angela afterwards.
- Also happened to Ricky Garduno, one of the Dumm Comics co-founders who worked on the show as a storyboard artist during seasons 10 and 11. Of the 13 episodes he was credited on, only two came out when he was still alive; the rest were broadcast posthumously.
- The final episode of Samurai Jack reintroduces Stock Footage of the first four seasons' Opening Narration, as well as a recreation of the scene from the end of Episode 1. This allowed Mako to be credited a final time years after his passing.
- Tex Avery was in the middle of producing The Kwicky Koala Show before he died. The show came out about a year later.
- Jean-Ives Raimbaud died before the first episode of Oggy and the Cockroaches was completed. He still receives creator credit on the show years later.
- Anton Yelchin died in June 2016, six months before Trollhunters premiered on Netflix. He managed to record several seasons worth of dialogue, defying a replacement as the voice of the main character.
- The end credits of the first season of Captain Planet and the Planeteers acknowledged David Rappaport (the original voice of Dr. Blight's computer assistant MAL), when the show premiered several months after he passed away.
