When Samuel L. Jackson appeared in Captain Marvel, the actor was digitally recreated to look like an age-appropriate version of himself for the 1990s film. But behind it was the performance of the modern actor, not mere computer graphics. So Jackson is no hypocrite when he swears that after his death he will not have himself digitally recreated in any project, whether in the Marvel Cinematic Universe or Star Wars.
The woman who would be Photon
The Nick Fury actor – who is finally heading up his own Marvel project with the latest Disney+ Secret Invasion miniseries – told Rolling Stone that since starring in The Phantom Menace, he has been wary of studios using his likeness posthumously :
The first time I was scanned for George Lucas [for The Phantom Menace] I said, “What’s this for?” George and I are good friends, so we kind of had a laugh about it, because I thought he’d do it, because he had all these old guys in Episode I, and if anything happened to them, he wanted to he still incorporated them into the film. Ever since I’ve been in the Marvel Universe, every time you change costumes in a Marvel movie, you get scanned. Ever since I did Captain Marvel and they did the Lola project, where they aged me and everything else, it’s been, ‘Well, I think they can do that anytime they want, if they really want to want!” It could be a cause for concern. Future actors should do what I always do when I get a contract and it says “permanent” and “known and unknown”: I cross that shit out. It’s my way of saying, “No, I don’t agree with that.”
I would say modern actors should also be concerned about studios effectively stealing their likenesses to manipulate them for their own purposes considering how often they already use AI to recreate them in various projects. The current Flash film brought Christopher Reeve, who died in 2004, back to life as Superman. The Rise of Skywalker did the same with the late Carrie Fisher for Leia Organa. Hopefully, actors new and old have taken notice and will follow Jackson’s lead.
Jackson’s comments come at an unfortunate time for Marvel Studios, which is currently facing criticism for using artificial intelligence instead of actual artists to create the opening credits for Secret Invasion. It’s all too easy to imagine that the studio would also like to replace actors with AI-generated look-alikes.
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