Deepfakes have become newly trendy, particularly if they prominently feature the likes of Spider-man actor Tom Holland and Marvel’s finest, Robert Downey Jr. The two were actually a major part of a deepfake featuring a scene from Back to the Future a little over a week ago.
Now, he’s admitted his knee-jerk reaction about the video going viral was not positive. He went so far as to tell BBC Radio he was “almost a little offended” about having his face superimposed on Michael J. Fox’s character in Back to the Future opposite his Marvel mentor, Robert Downey Jr.
At first I was almost a little offended, like I need to get my lawyer right now and sue someone. 'This is great, I’m gonna get paid today.' But then I didn’t because I thought it was a great video. But yeah I think I’m going to speak to Robert and see if we can create something for deepfake.
While Tom Holland was previously open about not really wanting to ever remake Back To The Future, the actor actually elaborated that this is far from the first time the Back to the Future conversation has come up in his life.
I’d be lying if I said there hadn’t been conversations in the past about doing some sort of remake, but that film is the most perfect film or one of the most perfect films. One that couldn’t be made better. That said, if Downey and I could just shoot that one scene that they remade for fun, he could pay for it because he has loads of money, I would do it for my fee. And we could make that one scene. I think we owe it to deepfake because they did such a good job.
I’m not sure if Tom Holland thinks deepfake is a company and not a type of thing, but either way the creator of the deepfake EZRyderX47 has gone on to add subscribers and see over 6 million people view this particular Back to the Future deepfake.
If you haven’t caught it yet, we’ve included it again below.
Deepfakes are becoming more of a thing and it’s easy to see how they could be a little disturbing for the celebrities that have been featured. However, from my vantage point there’s a big difference between deepfakes that are trying to pretend actresses are into porn or do other disturbing things and deepfakes that are clearly fakes and are all in good fun, like this one, which still uses Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox’s voices.
Only time will tell how this technology will eventually be applicable on a broad range of spectrums or whether limits will need to be in place. (We’ve seen this type of thing before, in fact, as Jason Biggs only recently talked about American Pie behavior that would in no way fly today.)
For now, if you’ve ever wanted to see a Reylo proposal or see Robert Pattinson in a Christian Bale Batman scene, there’s plenty of that out there.
