In 2021, Bruce Willis lent his likeness to a series of Russian mobile service commercials, and a few logical leaps later, we've arrived at the end of movies as we know them - all thanks to deepfakes. Technology has been the entertainment industry's constant companion, and the advancement of such has directly shaped the content produced by media makers. Oftentimes, creators are bound by technological constraints which affect their creative decisions. Today, at the mercy of a relentlessly accelerating internet age, filmmakers and audiences again must brace themselves for the creative impact of technological advancement.
With the advent of performance capture technology at the turn of the millennium and its further advancement on projects like Scorsese's Rogue One (2016). It seems only natural that filmmakers work within this constraint: that the talent available to them need be first, alive, and second, on set in their current condition. In fact, the latter film completely resurrected Peter Cushing for the role of Grand Moff Tarkin, whom he played in the 1977 original film, but was unable to reprise on of his death in 1994 at the age of 81. Tupac played Coachella in 2012 as a hologram. Clearly, death can no longer contain celebrities.
The processes by which artists have executed these feats vary. For some, artists have digitally reanimated characters' likeness. Willis' face is so well-documented in movies and TV, the algorithm has much to work with, taking images from various performances at every conceivable angle and expression. When done well, the result is nearly flawless. And the better the professionals get at deepfaking, the more widespread the amateur attempts, the more likely we'll soon see deepfaked stars headlining blockbusters in theaters.
Deepfake Technology Is Becoming More Widespread
The industry has come a long way from the beginnings of performance capture technology. While Gollum in the Home Stallone).
Bruce Willis, again, offers a sizable movie library, is relatively stagnant in the commercial, and his screen time in closeup is deliberately restrained.
Bruce Willis' Deep Fake Ad Is A Sign Of Things To Come
Then again, Willis' apparent disinterest plays to the deepfake's advantage. Willis has developed a reputation in the latter part of his career for taking low-brow work for a check, and subsequently checking out, mentally, of the production. His involvement in this Russian ad serves as an extension of this practice. Perhaps it's laziness, or perhaps it's business savvy. And with Willis opening the proverbial flood gates, any number of celebrities with a large backlog of reference images and a persona to leverage could begin licensing their likeness to projects. Michael Idov makes said observation on Twitter, cited in the Willis ad article reading, “this might be the future of mainstream second-world filmmaking: local blockbusters with digital copies of Hollywood stars licensed at, say, 1/10 their corporeal salary.”
Such a concept makes an appearance in the recently-released LeBron James vehicle Space Jam: A New Legacy. At a pitch meeting, Warner Bros. executives try to sell James on a new way to capitalize on his stardom and their library of content: digitally inserting his likeness into classic franchises. While the notion is played as antagonistic in the film, it's not out of the realm of possibility that such methods will become commonplace in the near future. The pandemic, too, has greased the works for such a sea change, further incentivizing production practices that cut down on costs and scenarios that expose at-risk talent to possible infection. With deepfake technology, Bruce Willis needn't leave the safety and comfort of his home to appear in ments shot and broadcast half a world away. His check is in the mail.
A Movie With A Deep Faked Star Will Happen Eventually
Movies are increasingly less reliant on ILM used on set to create much of The Mandalorian have virtually eliminated the need for location shooting. If the effects, entire swaths of extras, and even the setting can be replaced at a lower cost, replacing the stars themselves seems the logical conclusion of this experiment. And in a business that's always looking to cut costs, that experiment could prove worthwhile.
To find the entry point of deepfaked leading performances into the mainstream, Bruce Willis again shows the way. Willis has been one of a slew of stars who have contributed to a Carrie Fisher's untimely death would've creatively crippled Star Wars 9 so.
With the ubiquity of digital effects in today's movie landscape, deepfakes look poised to alter the way films are produced going forwards, threatening to ascend in influence all the way up to a project's leading role. The question becomes less will it happen and more when will it happen. The cascading effects of this possibility are myriad, from the attachments and greenlighting process straight through the marketing and distribution. Whatever way it shakes out, one thing remains a certainty: someone will try it, and their success or failure has the potential to shape all manner of media into the distant future.
