Sean Bean fans 'furious' as he's killed off on screen for 25th time

Sean Bean's character curse has struck again as he's killed off on screen for the 25th time - and fans of the acclaimed actor are 'furious and devastated'.

The seemingly expendable actor has earned a cult following during his years in TV and film, but his roles always seem to be wrapped up somewhat messily, coming to untimely and often sticky ends.

In 2014, distraught fans set up the #DontKillSeanBean movement — with the 64-year-old actor posing in t-shirts bearing the hashtag to show his support.

Fans breathed a sigh of relief when they thought he'd broken the curse playing pacifist Douglas Bennett in BBC drama, World on Fire.

BBC

While he dodged bullets far from the frontline of World War Two in the first series - series two began with a bang on Sunday (16 July) as Bennett went missing and was killed by a German bomb dropped on Manchester in the first episode.

One fan took to Twitter to voice their upset, saying: “They’ve killed off Sean Bean. I am f***ing furious and devastated.”

Another confirmed: “They’ve contributed to the list of shows that killed off Sean Bean.”

To put their annoyance into perspective, Bean's first screen death was in the 1986 movie Caravaggio when he gets his throat cut. Since then, fans have been forced to watch him die over and over again - and in some pretty brutal ways I might add. In War Requiem (1989) he was bayonetted, in Lorna Doone (1990) he drowned, in 1991’s The Field cows drove him off a cliff and in 1992's Clarissa he was stabbed.

New Line Cinema

In a memorably gory scene in The Patriot Games (1992) he was impaled by an anchor, then stabbed again in 1994's Scarlett and, playing iconic Bond baddie Alec Trevelyan in 1995’s GoldenEye, he was dropped onto a satellite dish and crushed.

I think you might need a little more than hashtag to rescue Bean at this point - no wonder his fans have gone crazy online.

After being shot to death in his next few films between 1998-2002, more notable deaths include being impaled by arrows, hanged, shot with a grappling hook and being frozen to death.

HBO

But of all of the terrible ways to go, who could forget the decapitation of his Game of Thrones character, Eddard Stark? Of all the on-screen sacrifices of Bean's many, many characters, Eddard Stark certainly went down as being one of the most unexpected - even if death does seem to follow him around.

At this point you wouldn't be alone in thinking that the critically-acclaimed actor must be seeking out roles that killed him off deliberately.

Well, according to a 2019 interview, the Sheffield-born star has actually turned down work for finding out that his character doesn't make it.

He told The Sun: "I've turned down stuff. I've said, 'They know my character's going to die because I'm in it!'

"I just had to cut that out and start surviving, otherwise it was all a bit predictable.

"I did do one job and they said, 'We're going to kill you', and I was like, 'Oh no!' and then they said, 'Well, can we injure you badly?' and I was like, 'OK, so long as I stay alive this time'.

"I've played a lot of baddies, they were great but they weren't very fulfilling - and I always died."

Although Bean's death toll is pretty impressive, it still doesn't take the lead as US star Danny Trejo currently has 41, where as the late Christopher Lee reached a total of 70.