The company behind DeepTomCruise is bringing its de-aging tech to Hollywood

Date:
Sat, 04 Feb 2023 12:00:28 +0000

Description:
Metaphysic has announced plans to bring its de-aging technology to Hollywood.

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You may or may not have heard of DeepTomCruise , but TikTok sure has. At the time of writing, the Metaphysic-owned parody account which sees actor Miles Fisher digitally altered into none other than Tom Cruise himself has attracted 5 million followers to rank among the social media platforms
biggest viral hits.

DeepTomCruise uses controversial deepfake technology to capture a virtual likeness of the Top Gun: Maverick star doing decidedly un-Cruise like things, and the same visual sorcery was employed to bring Elvis back to life during last years edition of Americas Got Talent .

Now, Metaphysic, the leading AI software company behind the wizardry, has announced plans to move into the motion picture game and its talent for trickery looks set to mean well see more and more actors digitally re-aged in movies and TV shows in the near future.

For starters, Metaphysic has been named the sole AI provider for Robert Zemeckis upcoming graphic novel adaptation Here , starring Forrest Gump duo Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. The film will supposedly incorporate industry-first hyperreal AI-generated face replacements and de-aging into the very fabric of its storytelling, with both Hanks and Wright seamlessly transforming into younger versions of themselves throughout. @deeptomcruise

original sound - heyy

Sure, actors have been re-aged in motion pictures before the faces of Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Chris Evans, Keanu Reeves, Mark Hamill and Ewan McGregor have all been subjected to various forms of digital manipulation in recent years but Metaphysics new proprietary technology, dubbed Metaphysic Live, uses innovative techniques to eliminate much of the workload that made those previous efforts so costly.

The tool will allow filmmakers to create high-resolution, photorealistic faceswaps and de-aging effects on top of actors' performances live and in real-time, without the need for further compositing or VFX work. See Metaphysic Live in action via the video below:

Ridiculous, right? Metaphysic says that the technology which maps photorealistic content onto real-world scenes at up to 30 frames per second is a dramatic advance [...] that will be essential to creating immersive AR/VR, gaming and entertainment experiences in the future. And by the looks
of things, the company isnt wrong to think so.

In addition to Zemeckis, Metaphysic has teamed up with one of Hollywoods leading talent agencies, Creative Artists Agency (CAA) which counts Margot Robbie, Harry Styles, Chris Hemsworth and Madonna among its clients to
unlock creative possibilities for artists using AI across film, television, and entertainment.

What that means, exactly, is still unclear but we suspect that the AI-assisted VFX on show in Zemeckis Here will be just the start for
Hollywoods association with Metaphysic. Indeed, a representative for the company told TechRadar that the partnership will allow for producers, screenwriters, directors and other creative artists to tap into Metaphysic's AI in the same way that Miramax [does] for Here . Outside of that, the possibilities are endless. Disney announced its own re-aging software, FRAN, in December 2022 (Image credit: Disney)

Metaphysics move into filmmaking comes just months after Disneys in-house VFX division announced its own major breakthrough in digital re-aging technology
. The entertainment giant heralds its Face Re-aging Network, or FRAN, as the first practical, fully automatic and production-ready method for re-aging faces, and its blink-and-youll-miss-it demonstration in the first Indiana Jones 5 trailer looks just as impressive as Metaphysic's real-time reconstruction of Elvis. Its clear, then, that re-aging (or downright deepfake) technology is gearing up for a fresh offensive on our eyeballs.

Of course, several ethical questions remain unanswered. Is it right to reanimate long-dead icons? Will younger versions of older actors make it harder for actual younger actors to succeed in Hollywood? Nobody knows for sure just yet. But one thing is certain: theres never been a better time to see Tom Cruise dancing to Lady Gaga in his dressing gown .



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/the-company-behind-deeptomcruise-is-bringing-it s-de-aging-tech-to-hollywood


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