Producers of ‘Glee’ want to give Cory’s character, Finn, the proper sendoff, so they are considering using old footage of the 31-year-old actor in order to soften the sudden blow of his absence, a source tells HollywoodLife.com exclusively.

Glee is slated to return for its fifth season Sept. 19, and though no official decisions have been made, regarding how to handle Cory Monteith’s tragic and sudden death on July 13, a source close to production tells HollywoodLife.com that the show may write the first few episodes around already filmed scenes of the 31-year-old actor.

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A source close to production tells HollywoodLife.com exclusively:

There has been talk about writing the first few episodes around old footage of Cory from the show and actually have Finn be alive for a bit in order to lead into a more emotional goodbye — so it doesn’t feel sudden. The producers are weighing what the cast and his family think of the idea, and of course Lea Michele, to see if it’s at all plausible to attempt. Regardless, they want to do any angle with dignity.

While this idea may seem a bit bizarre, it has certainly been done before. When Dallas star Larry Hagman passed away in November 2012, the revived TNT series found itself in an unfortunate predicament. They lost one of their leading actors as well as an icon from the original series.

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Larry died as the Dallas cast and crew were finishing the second season’s fifth episode. Showrunner Cynthia Cidre, executive producer Michael Robin and the writers and post-production staff found a way, however, to feature Larry’s character, J.R., in a scene on the seventh episode by re-using scenes Larry had previously shot. They flipped the image and digitally changed backgrounds and J.R.’s wardrobe.

At PaleyFest in March 2013, Larry’s co-star Patrick Duffy said:

That’s brilliant film editing. They found out-takes; they found shots that they couldn’t use before and changed the coloring to make it look like it was all done at the same time. They changed the angles of it and did everything on the computer to actually formulate a conversation that was never shot. All of those little things on the phone were shot at different times, in different scenes, and they put them all together and changed them all enough that it looked like it was a typical scene with Larry planned that way. But Larry and I always thought… we did 300 and something episodes of Dallas, and with the computer systems they have now, they could probably take the footage and reconstruct it and make another 100 episodes.

With advanced technology, the same can be done for Finn. The only question remaining is — does it feel right?

What do YOU think, HollywoodLifers? Should Cory be featured in the first few episodes of Glee this season? If so, what would you like to see Finn do before making his final exit?

— Chris Rogers, Reporting by Russ Weakland

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