Seconds before pressing ‘send’ on the original version of this column, news broke of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death.

At the moment, we know very little, other than he was found dead in his home, and it’s suspected he died of a drug overdose. Over the coming weeks there are going to be thousands of newspaper stories, website articles, radio phone-ins and TV debates speculating about his life, death and mental health.

I’m not going to take up your time with anything like that, but I’d be remiss to overlook the story.

Some celebrity deaths fall out of the sky and are so shocking, so jarring, that it throws your mind out of balance.

But this isn’t the case with Philip Seymour Hoffman. With a history of drug abuse, it’s perhaps the absence of shock that makes this death all the more tragic. And even though Hoffman wasn’t a celebrity-wastrel, courting attention by turning up inebriated to premieres, it always felt like this was something that was more likely to happen than not.

The occasions where he publicly spoke about his problems were rare and conducted with a measure of seriousness, but even when speaking about ‘past’ problems, there was an air that he was on the same path. But it’s easy for people like me to project (and feel vindicated in having) those kind of ideas, when his body has just been found.

Hoffman was one of the few actors whose appearance alone would be enough to make me watch a film. Even in awful comedies like Along Came Polly, he seemed to give real thought to the thinly sketched characters he was given, but it was in heavy dramatic pieces that he really shone.

Nonetheless, despite commanding the screen with incredible performances in films like Love Liza, Capote, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love and Happiness, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that his best was yet to come. Now we’ll never know.

But, business must continue, and so attention turns to the two last Hunger Games movies: Mockingjay – Parts 1 & 2, where Hoffman was playing Plutarch Heavensbee, a significant character.

Apparently Hoffman had completed the majority of his work on the film, but still had seven days of filming to go on Part 2 before wrapping. There’s no word yet on what studio Lionsgate plans to do to make up for that remaining week. t’s quite a large role, and obviously the film’s plot needs to adhere to the books, so a clever rewrite isn’t an option.

This problem has been faced before, probably most famously in 1993 when Brandon Lee died while filming The Crow, and then again in 1999 when Oliver Reed died while filming Gladiator.

In both these instances, filmmakers were able to use CGI and camera trickery to get around the problem.

With Gladiator, Reed’s face was digitally mapped onto a double’s head in the editing process, and the results were remarkably realistic – especially for a film completed in 2000.

With The Crow, the movie was very, very close to completion, but with the few shots left, the crew obscured the character’s face whenever possible and, again, digitally placed Lee’s face on to a double’s head. Like Gladiator, the CGI is very well done (probably better, actually, in terms of how unobtrusive it is) and it’s hard to tell which scenes were filmed after the actor was accidentally shot on set.

But in both these instances, fate was on the filmmakers’ sides.

If the remaining scenes were substantial, the Hunger Games team may have a big challenge.

For their part, Lionsgate has said: “Philip Seymour Hoffman was a singular talent and one of the most gifted actors of our generation. We’re very fortunate that he graced our Hunger Games family.

“Losing him in his prime is a tragedy, and we send our deepest condolences to Philip’s family.”