Bruce Willis hasn't sold rights to his face after all

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Bruce Willis' face still belongs to Bruce Willis

Photo: Will Oliver / EPA-EFE

A deepfake company called Deepcake has clarified that only Bruce Willis owns the rights to his face.

And a spokesman for the Hollywood actor confirmed to the BBC that Willis has not entered into any partnership or deal with the Russian company.

Reports over the past week, including those from the British newspaper Daily Mail, have claimed just that.

The confusion arose after an advertising clip for a Russian telecommunications company became known.

It features a deepfake of Willis' face, which is an animation created using computer technology.

From this, the Daily Mail concluded that Willis had sold the company the rights to his face and now had the opportunity to continue his career despite his illness.

Willis announced in March that he was retiring from the film business due to illness.

Now Willis and Deepcake clarified: The clip was actually made in agreement with the actor.

Willis gave the creators permission to use high-resolution scans of his face.

Beyond that, however, there is no agreement.

Deepcake claims to have an entire library of celebrity and historical face scans.

The technology has recently been used more and more in films, series and advertising.

And it doesn't just work for images: It was recently revealed that Darth Vader's voice will be voiced by an artificial intelligence after actor James Earl Jones, who actually owns the voice, retired.

Bruce Lee was raised from the dead for a whiskey commercial, Will Smith starred alongside a younger version of himself in the action thriller »Gemini«. There seems to be no limit to the new technology: it was recently revealed that 72-year-old Sigourney Weaver plays a teenager in James Cameron's new »Avatar« adventure.

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