You may or may not have heard of it DeepTomCruise (opens in new tab), but TikTok sure has it. As of this writing, the Metaphysic parody account — which sees actor Miles Fisher digitally transformed into none other than Tom Cruise himself — has attracted 5 million followers to rank among the social media platform’s biggest viral hits.
DeepTomCruise uses controversial deepfake technology to create a virtual image of the Top Gun: Maverick Star was doing decidedly Un-Cruise-esque things, and the same visual magic was applied bring Elvis back to life during last year’s edition of America’s Got Talent.
Now, Metaphysic, the leading AI software company behind the magic, has announced plans to jump into the movie game – and its talent for tricks seems to mean we’ll be seeing more and more actors digitally re-aged in films and TV shows in the near future.
First off, Metaphysic has been named the sole AI vendor for Robert Zemeckis’ upcoming graphic novel adaptation Heremain role Forrest Gump Duo Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. The film will reportedly be an industry first to “incorporate hyper-realistic AI-generated facial replacements and de-aging into the fabric of its storytelling,” with both Hanks and Wright “seamlessly morphing into younger versions of themselves.”
@deeptomcruise (opens in new tab)
♬ Original sound – hey (opens in new tab)
Sure, actors have been aged in motion pictures before — the faces of Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Chris Evans, Keanu Reeves, Mark Hamill, and Ewan McGregor have all undergone various forms of digital manipulation in recent years — but Metaphysic’s new proprietary technology called Metaphysic Live uses innovative techniques to eliminate much of the workload that made these previous efforts so costly.
The tool allows filmmakers to create high-resolution, photo-realistic face changes and de-aging effects live and in real-time on top of the actors’ performances, without the need for further compositing or VFX work. See Metaphysic Live in action in the video below:
Ridiculous, right? According to Metaphysic, the technology that maps photorealistic content to real scenes at up to 30 frames per second is a “dramatic advance”. […] this will be essential for creating immersive AR/VR, gaming and entertainment experiences in the future. And by the looks of it, the company isn’t wrong in thinking so.
Alongside Zemeckis, Metaphysic has partnered with one of Hollywood’s leading talent agencies, Creative Artists Agency (CAA) – whose clients include Margot Robbie, Harry Styles, Chris Hemsworth and Madonna – to “unlock creative possibilities for artists using AI across the board Film, TV and Entertainment.”
Exactly what that means is still unclear – but we suspect that the AI-assisted VFX used in Zemeckis’ Here will only be the beginning of Hollywood’s association with metaphysics. In fact, a company representative told TechRadar that the partnership “will allow producers, screenwriters, directors, and other creative artists to use Metaphysic’s AI in the same way as Miramax [does] for Here. Aside from that, the possibilities are endless.”
Metaphysics entered filmmaking only a few months later Disney’s in-house VFX department announced their own major breakthrough in digital re-aging technology. The entertainment giant is touting its Face Re-aging Network, or FRAN, as “the first practical, fully automated, production-ready method for face re-aging” and its tongue-in-cheek demonstration in the first Indiana Jones 5 Fan looks just as impressive as Metaphysic’s real-time reconstruction of Elvis. So it’s clear that re-aging (or outright deepfake) technology is gearing up for a new offensive on our eyeballs.
Of course, some ethical questions remain unanswered. Is it right to revive long dead icons? Will younger versions of older actors make it harder actually younger actors to succeed in Hollywood? Nobody knows for sure. But one thing is for sure: there’s never been a better time to watch Tom Cruise dances to Lady Gaga in a dressing gown.
