I don't know how new it is. Suppose they put an actress who looks vaguely like her in that context - i.e. appearing on the set of some non-denominational superhero movie, in such a way that it's clearly supposed to be a reference to her. That is OK. In fact Marvel does other stuff with these characters, where they deliberately give them different faces and voices so that they don't have to pay the actors!
Now what if the actress is actually a dead ringer for her? That happens. There's only so many ways to make a face and there's over 7 billion people out there. We're still talking about a real person now. I think that's a harder question to answer, even before we bring AI into it. To be sure the discount Scarlett actress owns her own face and has the right to work. But is she forbidden from appearing in a context that's calculated to make people think she's Scarlett Johansson? This would mean she has less freedom to work just because of the misfortune[1] of looking like SJ!
very interesting new law here. How do you prove what % of her you cloned. Is there a legal threshold if the general public thinks it's her, then you over-stepped. But what if my clone is 10% Scarlett Johansson 10% another star, 10% another, etc.
Now what if the actress is actually a dead ringer for her? That happens. There's only so many ways to make a face and there's over 7 billion people out there. We're still talking about a real person now. I think that's a harder question to answer, even before we bring AI into it. To be sure the discount Scarlett actress owns her own face and has the right to work. But is she forbidden from appearing in a context that's calculated to make people think she's Scarlett Johansson? This would mean she has less freedom to work just because of the misfortune[1] of looking like SJ!
[1] I know, I know.