Bruce Willis sells the rights to his face to a deepfake company. Therefore, the actor may appear in future projects.
Bruce Willis may have retired from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia, but a version of him may live on in future projects. Last year, the actor’s “digital twin”appeared in a Russian telecommunications ad created by Deepcake. Today, according to the company’s website and The Telegraph, we learn that Bruce Willis has sold his rights to future films, commercials and other projects to Deepcake.
Bruce Willis sells the rights to his face to a deepfake company
Engineers created a digital twin of Die Hard and The Fifth Element when Bruce Willis was 32 and 42 respectively. Now that the doppelgänger is on the company’s AI platform, it will be possible to get the actor’s face to appear in other projects very quickly. At the same time, it is Bruce Willis who will decide whether to star in any project or not.
In the Megafon advertisement, the face of Bruce Willis was replaced by the face of actor Konstantin Solovyov. “I liked the accuracy of my character. This is a good opportunity for me to go back in time,” the American actor said in a press release on Deepcake. “Thanks to the achievements of modern technology, I was able to communicate, work and participate in filming even from another continent. This is a new and interesting experience for me, and I am very grateful to my team.”
Thus, the actor will be able to appear in future projects.
Last March, Bruce Willis’ family announced that he was retiring due to a diagnosis of aphasia, a condition that makes it difficult to communicate and understand. In recent years, the 67-year-old American has appeared in several projects when his cognitive state already seemed unsettling.
Actors have already appeared as digital versions of themselves, such as the young Mark Hamill in The Boba Fett Book. Digital versions of Carrie Fisher and Peter Cushing also appeared in Star Wars: Rogue One, although both actors have now died. James Earl Jones recently sold to Disney the right to recreate his voice with artificial intelligence, allowing him to retire.
This practice is highly controversial. Deepfakes vary greatly in quality, but many also consider them something very strange, with characters that don’t seem entirely real. There is also the issue of rights, as deceased actors cannot relinquish roles posthumously, even if family or beneficiaries approve.