Actor Bruce Willis Becomes First Celebrity to Sell Rights to Deepfake Firm | Hacker News Reader

Actor Bruce Willis Becomes First Celebrity to Sell Rights to Deepfake Firm

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38 pointsCharlesW24 comments

I think this is excellent. For those that don't know, Bruce Willis recently retired from acting due to a degenerative brain disease called aphasia, and by selling these rights, he can still appear in new film projects without having to act in them himself.

Additionally, by deciding to do this while he's still alive, you don't really have to feel bad or gross inside (some people don't, but some do) by seeing these people reanimated in films, like with Princess Leia[2] or Tupac[3].

I hope to see more beloved actors do this (if they wish, of course), in the future.

[1]: https://variety.com/2022/film/news/bruce-willis-retiring-act...

[2]: https://dorksideoftheforce.com/2019/12/21/star-wars-the-rise...

[3]: https://wamu.org/story/12/04/17/how_that_tupac_hologram_at_c...

Aphasia is not a degenerative brain disease, it's the inability to properly comprehend or produce speech due to brain damage (there are different types of aphasia, with different symptoms, linked to damage in different brain regions). You can have aphasia from a localized traumatic head injury without your general intelligence being much affected or any further deterioration. Since Bruce Willis apparently does have an unspecified degenerative brain disease, that's sadly not going to be the case for him.

> Aphasia is not a degenerative brain disease

I have no idea if you're right about that or not, but I'll assume you are. That was just what I saw reported on a few media outlets describing his condition. And sure, media gets shit wrong all the time, so they're probably wrong about that too. I have not studied aphasia or know all of its details. The important bit is that he retired from acting shortly after the diagnosis, though.

"A little over a week ago Bruce Willis confirmed his retirement from acting due to aphasia, a degenerative brain disease that affects speech and communication in general."[1]

"Actor Bruce Willis has announced his retirement after being diagnosed with Aphasia a degenerative brain disease that impacts one's ability to speak"[2]

[1]: https://www.marca.com/en/lifestyle/movies/2022/04/08/62508bc...

[2]: https://en.as.com/en/2022/03/30/latest_news/1648665936_88722...

I wish writers would wiki the basics of their story before publishing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphasia

It could be aphasia from a neurodegenerative disease.

I don't have anything against Bruce Willis as an actor, but ... do we really need to keep him "alive" as an actor? I can understand "faking" Princess Leia because of the Star Wars canon, but why keep Willis (or Tupac, for that matter) around? Plenty of other good actors and musicians out there.

I suspect that basing synthesized actors based on real actors is a transitional thing. Studios would rather create actors. So they own the actor outright, and not pay royalties.

How wonderfully dystopian. It reminds me of the show Community where for governance reasons, Subway created a "corpohummanoid" to enroll in the school, however they ran into problems because the actor was a real human who wasn't able to pull off being the manifestation of a corporation all his waking hours.

See also: the first act of the movie The Congress. Princess Buttercup will be producing new work for a long time.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_16

Good book, not so great movie.

and not pay royalties.

And no actors guilds, unions, make-up artist time, dealing with actors needs, multiple takes and expensive re-shoots that is on developers now. Movie studios won't need to be in a big city any more either. Developers can work from home if their internet is fast enough.

Yeah but Die Hard 6, 7, 314, and so on won't be the same without him.

> ...do we really need to keep him "alive" as an actor?

Does any movie really need $BigStar when $NewTalent could act just as well?

>> do we really need to keep him "alive" as an actor

No, movies are not essential to our survival.

I don't think he cares at all about appearing in new films, he's just doing it for the money.

His disease is the reason he has been going to quantity over quality in the past decade, to amass as much cash as he can for his family, while he's able to.

And I don't say that in a bad way, it's understandable.

Red Letter Media had an interesting show where they reviewed some of his later "spam films" where he did hardly anything. They speculated that it could be due to health issues.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cd1eNS9HtXo

A comment on that video that I fully agree with: "The real question would be, did Bruce even have the mental capacity to make the decision to be in these films or did someone exploit him. A guy can't even remember one line, how would he even remember signing a contact for any movie."

That comment exemplifies the corruption of ignorance.

Dismissing the entire person’s memory faculties for a failing of one component of memory is like dismissing your intelligence for agreeing with such a comment.

Don't forget we're talking about his latest works, where he barely put his name on. If I was well respected actor I would do everything to leave the best possible impression; my agents could disagree however. That was the point.

We look forward to watching him feature in new movies for the next 10,000 years!

This is amusing because he has already been "faking" acting in movies for a decade. https://youtu.be/cd1eNS9HtXo?t=550

Oh I thought that'd be the movie Surrogates

How much more can the poor guy be exploited by his family? For some reason, the articles that have explained what’s been going on with Willis leave out the role his wife has played in what’s gone on with him. Sending out a guy who people claim doesn’t know where he is half of the time, to make straight-to-video release after release seems questionable.

Related, this is a great movie in case you haven't watched it,

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/

Ok, I need to watch that, it looks stunning.

It really is.

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