Netflix has announced that its new reality TV series, Wonka’s The Golden Ticket, will feature an AI-generated version of Gene Wilder’s voice, prompting a fierce backlash from fans who called the move “disrespectful” and “a plastic substitute”.
The actor, who played the eccentric chocolatier in the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, died in 2016. The series, set in the world of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s book, will see contestants take part in “a series of Wonka’s temptations and challenges”.
“Netflix faces backlash for using AI to recreate Gene Wilder's voice in a new Willy Wonka reality series, despite estate consent.”
The voice has been replicated by AI audio firm ElevenLabs, with the consent of Wilder’s estate. His wife, Karen B. Wilder, said she was “delighted” the series “celebrates the imagination” he brought to the role.
But not all fans agreed. One commenter on social media said the result “still sounds like every robotic AI voice you have heard”. Others drew comparisons to the disastrous “Willy’s Chocolate Experience” event in Glasgow in 2024, which went viral for failing to deliver on its promises. “Perhaps the Wonka experience was better than this (not that it’s saying much),” one post read, alongside a picture of that drab event.
The announcement comes after other attempts to revive the voices of deceased entertainers using AI. In October 2024, Sir Michael Parkinson’s son defended the use of AI to recreate the chat show host’s voice for a new interview podcast series.
Jocelyn Burnham, who specialises in how AI is used in arts and culture, said studios appeared to be “testing the waters” for what audiences might accept. She cited Disney’s digital recreation of James Earl Jones’s voice as Darth Vader in the 2022 TV series Obi-Wan Kenobi as evidence that audiences are not “automatically hostile” to all uses of AI in screen performances.
But she added there was no “settled set of industry norms” around where audiences draw the line, and that “the more loved the voice or character is, the more scrutiny the resulting product is likely to face”.