How AI is bringing film stars back from the dead

Most actors dream of building a career that will outlive them. Not many manage it – show business can be a tough place to find success. Those that do, though, can achieve a kind of immortality on the silver screen that allows their names to live on in lights.

One such icon is the American film actor James Dean, who died in 1955 in a car accident after starring in just three films, all of which were highly acclaimed. Yet now, nearly seven decades after he died, Dean has been cast as the star in a new, upcoming movie called Back to Eden.

A digital clone of the actor – created using artificial intelligence technology similar to that used to generate deepfakes – will walk, talk and interact on screen with other actors in the film.