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While on paper “The Irishman” looks like a return to a very comfortable wheelhouse for Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, with the movie revolving around the exploits of a notorious hitman, the pair are using the movie as an opportunity to play with some newfangled technology. Back in 2015, De Niro himself revealed that Scorsese was looking at using “The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button“-esque technology to make himself and other actors in the cast look younger. And now, producer Gastón Pavlovich confirms the filmmakers are still exploring de-aging De Niro.

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“Well, it’s an extraordinary technology that we’ve been looking at. You don’t use prosthetics, make-up, they have acting and the technology is able to have them go through different time ages without the prosthetics. So we’ve seen some tests and it looks extraordinary,” he told Cinema Blend. “We were able to film Bob and just do a scene, and we saw it come down to when he was like 20, 40, 60, so we’re looking forward to that, from that point of view, for ‘The Irishman’ … Imagine seeing what De Niro looked like in ‘The Godfather 2‘ days, that’s pretty much how you’re going to see him again.”

It’s an interesting idea conceptually, though whether or not it can be realistic enough to not take a viewer out of the movie remains to be seen. Though I guess it saves Scorsese from having to cast numerous actors in the same role, if he can just digitize De Niro for whatever era the story decides to journey toward. Guess we’ll see how it all turns out.

“The Irishman” is currently aiming to open in cinemas in 2018.