“This year’s Oscar for Best Actor goes to…… Marlon Brando’s estate for his digitized role in Godfather 7: The Prequel.”

In 2016 moviegoers saw Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story playing the characters Tarkin and Leia. This is despite the fact that Cushing had been dead for over 20 years and Fisher was 40-years older than she appeared in the film. Living actors Guy Henry and Ingvild Deila acted out the scenes, then the team at ILM used special cameras and CGI techniques to transform them into Cushing and Fisher as they were circa 1977.

The significance of these techniques are monumental for the entertainment industry:

-- Old age and death are no longer impediments to casting --

Of course there is a bit of an uncanny valley feeling with the characters’ faces, as a hint of CGI unreality remains. But we’re fooling ourselves if we don’t think that upcoming generations of technology won’t deliver flawless representations of any desired actor.

So, now that we have arrived at a point where producers can cast any actor, living or dead, to deliver any performance … possibilities arise:

Prequels, sequels and spinoffs of the Sopranos, Game of Thrones, The Wire, Breaking Bad... all with original casts?

More Harry Potter movies starring the actors as they were at any age?

Any Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, or any Star-related program, rebooted with original casts

[Insert Movie Name] starring [Insert Actor’s Name] as they were at age [Insert Desired Age]

With advancements in CGI technology, it will become easier and cheaper for directors to superimpose any actor’s likeness on to any performance. Increased ease-of-use could result in a digital marketplace of actors’ likenesses. Directors could scroll through an ever-expanding array of likenesses to select which face, body and voice they want to superimpose on to a real life performance.

Such a marketplace of likenesses wouldn’t have to be exclusively available to movie directors, it could extend to movie-watchers alike. When I stream the latest James Bond movie, could I scroll through a list of actors whose likeness could be superimposed to play Bond? Maybe I’m in the mood for Sean Connery to play Bond, or maybe Pierce Brosnan this time, in either case I’ll choose Sean Bean to play the villain so he can deliver his signature death performance.