In July 2001, Warner Bros was denying that its troubled production "Queen of the Damned" - the sequel to "Interview With the Vampire" - would be a straight to video release. And in September 2001, it quashed such speculation as a "vicious rumour", after the death of the film's lead, Aaliyah, in a plane crash on 25th August 2001.

At the age of 22, the film was the popular R&B star's first foray into movies. Her death lent the movie a ghoulish new box office appeal - potential proven by the effect her demise had on her music career. Sales of her new album rose almost 700% within a week of her death, seeing it storm to No.1 on the Billboard album chart in the US.

Ironically, Aaliyah's untimely death finally gave "Queen of the Damned" big name appeal. The film's other named star, Stuart Townsend, had seen his image tainted after being booted off the set of "The Lord of the Rings", to be replaced by Viggo Mortensen. And he wasn't even first choice for "Damned" - he only came aboard after "American Beauty" star Wes Bentley decided to pass.

Propping up the cast is a script that underwent several major re-writes in trying to merge two Anne Rice books, "The Vampire Lestat" and "The Queen of the Damned", into one coherent film.

Rice offered to write the screenplay for free but was turned down, a decision that alienated her from the project. This was a curious decision for a film banking on the popularity of the writer, especially for a cut-price, long-delayed sequel. Its budget, $35 million, compared unfavourably to the $50m lavished on "Interview With the Vampire", made eight years previously (even if a fair percentage of that budget went in star Tom Cruise's pocket).

A further complication was that, despite Aaliyah working with a voice coach, an Egyptian accent made some of her lines hard to understand. The solution was found after the R&B singer's death: her brother Rashad was able to mimic her serene tones and subsequently re-recorded some of her dialogue.

With a US gross of $30 million, "Queen of the Damned" hasn't been the spectacular flop many anticipated. In many ways, there are echoes with the 1994 pic "The Crow", another film shrouded in tragedy following the on-set death of Brandon Lee.

But while Lee has only a cluster of average films to be remembered by, at least Aaliyah has her music as a worthy testament to an undoubted talent.