Anton Ernst was dumbfounded.

It had been barely a day since news broke that the computer-generated likeness of James Dean, the generation-defining actor who died in a car crash in 1955, would star in his planned film, “Finding Jack.” Some in Hollywood denounced the move. Others accused Mr. Ernst, a producer, of using Dean, the star of “Rebel Without a Cause,” as a marketing gimmick.

“If we aren’t doing anything to hurt James Dean’s image, why are people pushing back?” asked Mr. Ernst, who will direct the movie with Tati Golykh. “I’m trying to analyze what the moral issue is here.”

The issue may be less about morality than about who owns an actor’s image. Hollywood has a complicated relationship when it comes to technology: It is good when it makes a movie better, but it is bad when it exploits actors or takes away their jobs. Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that actors were among the first to voice concern about “Finding Jack.”

Chris Evans, who has played Captain America in the Marvel franchise movies, criticized the use of Dean’s image. “This is awful,” he said on Twitter. “Maybe we can get a computer to paint us a new Picasso.” And Elijah Wood, who starred in the “Lord of The Rings” movies, wrote on Twitter: “NOPE. this shouldn’t be a thing.” (Never mind that both men starred in franchises celebrated for their use of computer-generated imagery.)