Netflix has released the first teaser for its upcoming reality show, Wonka’s Golden Ticket. And because the future is terrible, Netflix used AI to copy the late Gene Wilder’s voice to narrate the teaser. It’s yet one more sign of the streaming giant’s slide from a high-end, premium content creator to a cheap, knock-off broadcast network.
On June 30, Netflix showed Wonka fans their first real look at its next big reality competition show which, like Squid Game: The Challenge, is based on a fictional franchise built around people getting picked off one by one in cruel, twisted challenges. This time around, Golden Ticket is inspired by the classic 1971 film, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, which starred Gene Wilder as the eccentric but lovable confectioner Willy Wonka. And despite dying back in 2016, Wilder narrates this Golden Ticket teaser thanks(?) to the grim power of AI, as reported by Deadline.
Here’s the teaser:
My gut reaction to this is that it’s horrible. I’d rather eat glass than listen to dead people have their voices resurrected via computer to chat about a licensed reality show on Netflix. I’ll at least give the AI tool used in this teaser credit: It perfectly recreated just how lazy and uninterested Wilder would have actually been in this abomination if he were still alive and was paid to promote it.
Deadline reports that Wilder’s voice was recreated with the permission of his estate. His wife Karen B. Wilder said she was “delighted” that the actor’s voice will get to reach a “new generation.” His voice will apparently play a larger role in the rest of the series, not just this teaser. Netflix reportedly also worked closely with ElevenLabs, an AI audio company, to recreate Wilder’s voice. The company has worked with Stan Lee’s estate and Michael Caine on similar projects. You might have heard that an AI version of the latter is narrating a new audiobook of the Odyssey ahead of the release of Christopher Nolan’s latest Hollywood blockbuster.
Even if the members of an actor or musician’s estate sign off on using AI tools to resurrect deceased celebrities, as we saw with Tupac and Val Kilmer recently, I can’t help but feel grossed out by all of this.
Seeing companies puppet famous dead people from the past to shill products or have them appear in new games or movies is both nasty and also seems like a giant red flag that popular culture has splintered so much that few people are becoming truly famous in the traditional, large-scale sense. So companies are looking to the graveyard to pull out stars from the era of the monoculture to try and make a few bucks on their name and likeness while they are still valuable. Digital grave robbing is gross, man.
Wonka’s Golden Ticket airs exclusively on Netflix on September 23. I’ll just watch the original movie instead.
