Not talked about more before his death

He was talked a lot about given a guy his age 28 he had already notched up two oscar nominations and was the glory child in the acting world.

He was well known, if not a full fledged star yet. It was clear that the Batman film was gonna launch him into another stratosphere. I found 10 Things, The Patriot, and A Knights Tale to be really enjoyable and in big part due to his performance's in each. His work in Brokeback was a pretty big deal. Like has been said, he was only 28 and had the moxie of an A-list star for years to come. Such a shame

he was still building his resume I am sure had he lived his next films post batman would launce him into career highs his peers like gosling jake gyhall leo and matt dmaon saw

Before Brokeback i found article dated back to 2005 that labelled him box office poison .If you want get technical Ten things may have gotten him noticed but his first actually hit was at 27 years Brokeback

He was 25 when Brokeback was released.

Ye he was still young Brokeback was his first hit

i completely agree with you. heath ledger was a name but he wasnt a massive star by any stretch. if you really break it down his career consists of 3 "hits"....10 things, brokeback and then dark knight (posthumously) so by the time he died he essentially only had one major hit under his belt; brokeback (im not counting 10 things as it was just a modest hit in the 90s teen comedy scene). so at the time of his death he really wasnt that big a star....so ive never understood why heath ledger's death got so much publicity. he really wasnt that accomplished at the time. the only time he got major publicity was for brokeback mountain ....and though his performance was very good in that film, the subject matter was so salacious that you could have put anyone in the movie and the actors would have gotten a lot of attention. maybe the performance wouldnt have been as good, but the media frenzy was going to be there no matter what.

i also think the dark knight and the whole batman fanfare in general would never have been as big if he didnt die. i definitely dont think hed have won the oscar or even been nominated. before his death the batman franchise was a healthy money maker but not on the same level it is now. batman begins only made 300 million or so. they werent billion dollar movies like they are now. the hype of his death definitely made nolan's career.

compare ledger to say Anton Yelchin who was the same age roughly and who had a slew of huge mainstream hits and who i didnt even know died until days after the fact....because no one spoke about it on social media (at least not that i noticed) and it was barely a blip in the media.

anyway, all that aside i watched Green Room last night which was anton's final film and it was amazing. highly recommend

Im sure dark knight would still been big hit given comic book genre is in. Plus when he died he only had 2 hits borkeback and dark knight. !0 things might have cult status now but was modest hit at time .