A crazy deepfake video has resurfaced and has been making the rounds lately, transforming Hollywood megastar Leonardo DiCaprio into Young Anakin Skywalker, flowing into his transformation into Darth Vader. As many fans would know, DiCaprio was first offered the role of Anakin Skywalker in 2002’s Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, but he declined in favor of other more lucrative opportunities.
Many other popular actors like Christian Bale and Paul Walker were in the running, but ultimately, George Lucas decided to go with a newcomer and cast Hayden Christensen. But now fans can see what DiCaprio would have looked like if he was indeed cast as Anakin. Collider, a while ago, in collaboration with Star Wars creator George Lucas (who is obviously a deepfake creation and not the real thing}, made an incredible video replacing Hayden Christensen with DiCaprio as Anakin in Prequel Trilogy. The video was uploaded in December 2019 by Collider Extras on their Youtube channel but has reemerged recently.
The video begins with an introduction by Star Wars creator George Lucas cracking a few jokes and explaining how he originally wanted DiCaprio to play Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels. The stunning video then chronicles Anakin’s journey from his time at Tatooine to the iconic face reveal in Return of the Jedi. A young DiCaprio is inserted onto Jake Lloyd’s face, and it’s eerie how real it all looks. Overall, the entire clip looks spectacular, and it’s difficult to believe that it is from 2019. Perhaps, the fact that the video was made with George Lucas’s help is why it looks so good.
Deepfake is all the craze lately. As the technology is getting more and more impressive, it’s becoming difficult to tell if stuff is real or not. Lucasfilm recently hired Youtuber Shamook, who created a deepfake video improving Luke Skywalker’s appearance in episode 8 of The Mandalorian season 2. His addition to the visual effects team tells us that Mark Hamill himself will be portraying Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian season 3. Fans have been demanding the character to be re-cast with Sebastian Stan. But for now, it looks like Disney and Lucasfilm trust their De-aging technology and have decided to move forward with Hamill only.
Leonardo DiCaprio took a hiatus after his long-overdue Oscar win in 2016 for The Revenant. He returned in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, earning another academy award nomination for Best Actor. DiCaprio is now attached to star in a number of high-profile projects. He will next be seen alongside Jennifer Lawrence in Adam McKays’ sci-fi satire Don’t Look Up, releasing later this year on Netflix. Lawrence herself took a break from Hollywood after 2018, and fans are looking forward to her return. DiCaprio is also attached to star in Martin Scorsese’s western epic Killers of the Flower Moon, albeit in a supporting role. He is will also produce and probably star in Roosevelt, a Martin Scorsese-directed biopic of the former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt.
As evident, Leonardo DiCaprio will be busy for the next couple of years and won’t be joining the Star Wars franchise anytime soon. Many actors like Ethan Hawke and Bill Burr, who in the past have expressed their aversion to Star Wars or other big-budget fantasy films, have had a change of heart recently. Hopefully, it happens to DiCaprio as well, because he’d be a great addition to the Star Wars franchise. This news comes to us from Giant Freakin Robot.