After Captain Marvel, the trend of digitally de-aging actors several decades continues with Ang Lee's latest film.
In the upcoming science-fiction film Gemini Man, the first trailer for which was released on Tuesday, Will Smith stars as an assassin who is targeted by a younger clone of himself. The 50-year-old actor plays both the older assassin at his current age, as well as the 23-year-old clone.
Smith was digitally de-aged almost 30 years for the movie, and he has said that the "physical challenges of making this film have been the most demanding of my career," per Entertainment Weekly. This young version of Smith will be front-and-center throughout, with the film's VFX supervisor having said he's in "400-plus scenes in over half the movie," per IndieWire.
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This trailer comes shortly after Marvel used digital effects to make Samuel L. Jackson look about 25 years younger as Nick Fury in Captain Marvel, with the studio previously utilized de-aging in films like Captain America: Civil War, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and Ant-Man and the Wasp. David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button also made use of de-aging in 2008.
Gemini Man, which hits theaters in October, won't even be the only film of the fall to make use of de-aging technology. Martin Scorsese's The Irishman will be de-aging its cast, which includes Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci, for flashback scenes that evidently comprise about half the movie. All this digital work adds up, with The Irishman's budget having reportedly skyrocketed past $140 million.
Check out the first footage of the de-aged Smith in the trailer below. Brendan Morrow
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