Horrified fans slam de-aged Tom Hanks and Robin Wright as 'nightmare fuel' in new film

Robin Wright and Tom Hanks are reuniting for new film Here, but fans have been left alarmed by the first pictures from it (Picture: Sony Pictures)

Tom Hanks and Robin Wright are reuniting on screen for the first time since Forrest Gump, but fans have been left recoiling over the ‘nightmare fuel’ first-look images from their upcoming film, Here.

The two Hollywood stars, who are also working again with Forrest Gump director Robert Zemeckis for the project, are tasked with portraying the same two characters over the entire span of their lives – from 18 into their 80s.

Naturally, prosthetics have been used to age them up and CGI to smooth out and de-age their faces for the scenes when they’re youngest.

However, this has not gone down well with fans, who have questioned filmmaker Zemeckis’ reliance on the technology – and the effect it has achieved – describing the digitally de-aged Hanks, 67, and Wright, 58, as ‘CGI monstrosities’.

Here is based on the 2014 graphic novel of the same name by Richard McGuire and takes place across a century in the same, single location – with the camera never moving from its fixed position and viewpoint inside the home.

While Wright and Hanks play the central couple, Margaret and Richard, viewers will also get to observe Richard’s parents, Paul Bettany and Kelly Reilly, as well as Michelle Dockery and Gwilym Lee as a couple at the turn of the century and a 1920s couple comprised of David Fynn’s inventor and Ophelia Lovibond’s model.

The two stars play the same characters over many decades, with CGI used to de-age them into teenagers (Picture: Sony Pictures)

Hanks, who is 67, famously teamed up with Wright and director Robert Zemeckis for 1994’s Forrest Gump (Picture: Getty)

Wright has also worked with Zemeckis on Beowulf, while Hanks collaborated for Cast Away, The Polar Express and Disney’s 2022 Pinocchio remake (Picture: Getty)

‘Calling on the Biden administration to ban digital de-aging,’ announced Mark Yarm on X as he reacted to images of Hanks and Wright, which includes them embracing as teenagers with retro hairstyles, as well as a still of the two stars as slightly older adults, with Hanks in a plaid shirt worn over a T-shirt and Wright’s noticeably CGI-altered face caught in rather a dead-eyed expression.

She also doesn’t look much at all like Wright did playing Jenny in Forest Gump, who was 28 when the film was released, to Hanks’ 38.

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‘Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Because… why?’ asked B.A. Parker on the social media platform, with other users demanding that there ‘have to be consequences’ for this.

Fans are not impressed by how the actors look as de-aged versions of themselves in Here, compared with how they used to look (Picture: Paramount/Kobal/Rex/Shutterstock)

‘I cannot get over how bad it looks,’ admitted fan Anna, while Olivia Truffaut-Wong couldn’t resist quipping of the Oscar-winning star’s lookalike actor son: ‘This is so rude to Colin Hanks.’

Many fans were also frustrated by Cast Away director Zemeckis continuing to favour the use of CGI, as he did for previous animated films including The Polar Express, 2009’s A Christmas Carol with Jim Carrey and – most infamously – 2007’s Beowulf.

‘Forrest Gump 2 spanning through 9/11 and beyond is honestly something I’m not sure I can miss because it’s going to be unadulterated Zemeckis-nightmare fuel,’ posted @benzostraydogs.

For Beowulf, which also starred Wright, the filmmaker transformed the then sturdy 50-year-old Ray Winstone into a six-packed 20-year-old warrior.

Here uses a single camera in a fixed point in a house over a century, with people coming and going (Picture: Sony Pictures)

Hanks and Wright are also aged up with prosthetics for later scenes in the film (Picture: Sony Pictures)

Although these movies represented big leaps forward in movie-making technology at the time, they also contributed to the uncanny valley reaction fans had to these altered humans’ ‘offness’.

‘Zemeckis must be stopped,’ insisted @HunseckerProxy after seeing the pictures from Here, while @FredSmith914 added: ‘Robert Zemeckis I am begging you to stop learning about new moviemaking technologies.’

However, other fans admit they have been drawn to the spectacle promised by Here.

‘Expecting this to basically be a feature length version of the opening of Up with some CGI monstrosities throughout, wouldn’t have it any other way with a Zemeckis picture,’ observed Marcus Finch.

Zemeckis has defended his habit of using CGI in his movies (Picture: Sony Pictures)

Defending his choice to use CGI again for the movie, Zemeckis told Vanity Fair: ‘I’ve always been, for some reason, labelled as this visual effects guy. But those were always there to serve as the character arc.’

He also insisted he felt that directors’ jobs ‘as filmmakers is to show the audience things that they don’t see in real life’.

He added: ‘It only works because the performances are so good. Both Tom and Robin understood instantly that, “Okay, we have to go back and channel what we were like 50 years ago or 40 years ago, and we have to bring that energy, that kind of posture, and even raise our voices higher.” That kind of thing.’

Here is scheduled for release in the US on November 15. A UK release date is yet to be announced.

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