An anonymous YouTuber spent far less time and money than Martin Scorsese and Netflix to de-age actors in ‘The Irishman’ using the deepfake technology – and the results are rapidly winning fans over.
Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Irishman’ may be an awards favorite at the moment, but a spotlight was just blasted onto one of the movie’s most glaring flaws: the de-aging of its star cast. Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Al Pacino, and others are de-aged throughout the film, which tells a story that spans three decades. Even positive reviews of the Netflix feature, which debuted in November, pointed out that the de-aging CGI effects were lacking in the believability department.
Now YouTube user iFake, a deepfake video specialist, has released their own video, de-aging the actors with free technology and then comparing the results to those of Netflix, which reportedly spent well over $100 million on the Martin Scorsese-directed feature.
The video reportedly took only seven days to make (it’s only a few minutes long) and the results show the characters in the actual Netflix movie to be a bit too rough around the edges and unfinished.
Though many Hollywood insiders are likely hesitant to criticize Scorsese and company in the middle of awards season, this new video is already earning fans. ‘The Grey’ and ‘Narc’ director Joe Carnahan took to Twitter to praise the video and throw some shade at the effects in Scorsese’s effort.
“All I can say about this, is HOLY S**T,” the director tweeted.
After one user responded by saying iFake was at an advantage since they were de-aging the already de-aged footage from the film, Carnahan doubled down on his criticisms.
“Then that's what they should have been doing. Results is results, guys. We can say it's 2k and wouldn't hold up, yadda-yadda but the stuff on the right, looks better than the stuff on the left,” he wrote.
Some critics have begun turning on Scorsese’s vision as well.
“It’s enough to make you wonder whether outspoken big-screen advocate Scorsese spent all that money in an effort to try to bankrupt Netflix from the inside,” Joe Berkowitz wrote for Fast Company about the new video, just one of many critics to praise the effects of the deepfake video of Scorsese’s film.
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