The French voice of Sylvester Stallone, that of actor Alain Dorval who died last year, was recreated using artificial intelligence for the needs of the action film “Armor”.
The daughter of the deceased, Minister Aurore Bergé, denies having validated the trailer which arouses strong criticism on social networks.
The case highlights the concern of dubbing professionals regarding the use of these new technologies.
Follow the full coverage
How far will artificial intelligence go?
A first in the history of dubbing? In an article published Friday January 10, Variety reveals that start-ups Lumiere Ventures and ElevenLabs used artificial intelligence to recreate the famous French voice of Sylvester Stallone, that of actor Alain Dorval, who died last year, for the needs of the action film Armor. To comment on this unprecedented experience, the professional magazine quotes the daughter of the deceased… Aurore Bergé, the Minister for Equality between Women and Men.
“We wanted to do something that honored my father’s art and legacy,” declares the latter in a press release. “There is a major difference between artificially creating a new voice – and my father was strongly against this – and bringing back to life an actor whose voice is deeply ingrained in our collective imagination.”
If the initiative was intriguing on paper, the distribution of the trailer above on social networks quickly aroused ridicule and/or indignation from Internet users, for whom the result is as caricatured in form as it is questionable on the bottom. But they are not the only ones. In a message posted on X, Aurore Bergé denies having given authorization to the project, at least as it stands.
“I have agreed to a trial. Only a trial”she specifies. “An agreement strictly guaranteeing me that my mother and I would be in final validation before any use/publication. And that nothing could be done without our agreement. I discover… on X that this commitment is not respected. I never validated such a broadcast and my father would never have validated it as it stands.”
-A technology that is debated
Announced for March on Prime Video, the release ofArmor will it be called into question? All over the world, the development of artificial intelligence is worrying dubbing professionals. Last December, around a hundred of them demonstrated in Paris at the call of unions to demand protection against software capable of doing their job at a lower cost.
In Hollywood, the use of AI was at the heart of negotiations between actors’ unions and studios during the strike that paralyzed the industry in the summer of 2023. An agreement was reached to impose the consent of actors and actresses when their voice or appearance is recreated by technology. Whether they are alive or dead…
-
Read also
Threatened by AI, dubbing actors give voice
For the purposes of the recent Alien : Romulusdirector Fede Alavarez obtained permission from the family of British actor Ian Holm, who died in 2020, in order to “resurrect” Ash, the android he played in the first film in 1979. In recent years, the AI also made it possible to revive Carrie Fisher, Princess Leia of Star Wars. But also to make Harrison Ford 40 years younger in the last episode of Indiana Jones.
