The Marvel Cinematic Universe was always going to get caught up in the AI conversation eventually, but it’s majestically ironic that it’s happened at right around the same time Samuel L. Jackson has revealed his distrust over the use of his digital likeness dates back a lot longer than many of his peers.
The opening credits to Secret Invasion have ignited an online firestorm that’s seen immense criticism pointed in the direction of Marvel Studios for using artificial intelligence to design its titles, but even an explanation from the company behind them hasn’t done anything to stem the tide.
Even though he’s been de-aged and recreated several times over across many forms of media, Jackson admitted in an interview with Rolling Stone that his skepticism goes all the way back to his Star Wars days, and he won’t even sanction the use of his visage being used in a manner he hasn’t personally approved.
“People just started worrying about that? I asked about that a long time ago. The first time I got scanned for George Lucas, I was like, ‘What’s this for?’ George and I are good friends, so we kind of had a laugh about it because I thought he was doing it because he had all those old guys in Episode I, and if something happened to them, he still wanted to put them in the movie… Future actors should do what I always do when I get a contract, and it has the words ‘in perpetuity’ and ‘known and unknown’ on it: I cross that shit out. It’s my way of saying, ‘No, I do not approve of this.'”
As the debate over AI rolls on, we can at least sleep soundly in the knowledge that Samuel L. Jackson won’t be getting deepfaked into anything after ensuring he’s read the small print, although his status as the star and executive producer of Secret Invasion does put him right at the forefront of the latest discourse nonetheless.