On Friday, TriStar Pictures released Here, a $50 million Robert Zemeckis-directed film that used real time generative AI face transformation techniques to portray actors Tom Hanks and Robin Wright across a 60-year span, marking one of Hollywood’s first full-length features built around AI-powered visual effects.
Metaphysic developed the facial modification system by training custom machine-learning models on frames of Hanks’ and Wright’s previous films. This included a large dataset of facial movements, skin textures, and appearances under varied lighting conditions and camera angles. The resulting models can generate instant face transformations without the months of manual post-production work traditional CGI requires.
You couldn’t have made this movie three years ago," Zemeckis told The New York Times in a detailed feature about the film. Traditional visual effects for this level of face modification would reportedly require hundreds of artists and a substantially larger budget closer to standard Marvel movie costs
Meanwhile, as we saw with the SAG-AFTRA union strike last year, Hollywood studios and unions continue to hotly debate AI’s role in filmmaking. While the Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild secured some AI limitations in recent contracts, many industry veterans see the technology as inevitable. “Everyone’s nervous,” Susan Sprung, CEO of the Producers Guild of America, told The New York Times. “And yet no one’s quite sure what to be nervous about.”
Pretty interesting after Robin Wright’s role in The Congress.
They couldn’t get Zoltar to de-age him like in Big? Why use A.I. to do something we could already do in 1988 for 25¢?
That went the other way, it is easier. The ending was just putting him back.
What’s incredible to me is that the results really aren’t very good. We all know what they looked like young, and the AI version is just… Not Wright. No Hanks, AI.
While I don’t disagree that it’s inevitable that AI will be used in all sorts of ways, I’m really getting tired of all of these large companies trying so hard to jam it in everywhere it may not necessarily belong.
Well they didn’t do it with Botox.
I’ve heard the film is terrible which is more important.
It’ll be interesting to see how this looks. The same technology was used in Alien: Romulus to revive a younger Ian Holm’s likeness for Rook, and while it was a cool tech demo, it still felt quite uncanny valley and distracting to watch. Casting another actor might have been a better choice. At least for this project the tech sounds more relevant, in that they’re deaging and aging characters within the same film.
Seems pretty sappy. I would be happier with Bachelor Party 2. Where Tom Hank’s son goes back in time to 1985 to fix problems that happened.
When I saw the commercial for this movie all I could think of was that King of the Hill episode where Peggy tries selling houses by staging cheesy family plays about the house
Using AI in this way I think is generally fine. I draw the line at using it, as well as any other effects, to recreate an actor’s face who has passed away.
I thought they went on strike to make sure the next Tom Hanks movie actually has Tom Hanks.
It… is Tom Hanks.
