--- title: "Here’s How It’d Look If Chris Farley Played the Joker, According to AI" description: "Here's what Chris Farley might have looked like as the Joker, thanks to the magic of text-to-image artificial intelligence Midjourney." date: "2022-09-03" modified: "2022-09-03" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-chris-farley-joker" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "artificial intelligence" - "chris farley" - "the digest" - "the joker" --- # Here’s How It’d Look If Chris Farley Played the Joker, According to AI ![Here's what Chris Farley might have looked like as the Joker, thanks to the magic of text-to-image artificial intelligence Midjourney.]() *\Image: Midjourney\* ## Jokerfied The villainous Joker, from the world of "Batman," has been brought to life on screen in numerous memorable performances: Jack Nicholson in "Batman" (1989), Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight" (2008) and even Juaquin Phoenix "Joker" (2019.) One casting we never got to see was famed "Saturday Night Live" cast member Chris Farley as the iconic bad guy, since he tragically passed away in 1997. But thanks to the magic of text-to-image artificial intelligence Midjourney, now we can see what [might have been](): https://twitter.com/infinitethird/status/1565532314637160448 ## Wicked Clown The images are clearly evocative, rendering Farley's arresting countenance in the ominous face paint and purple-suited sleaze of the noted Batman nemesis, and they've been [reverberating across the web]() for several days now. It's canny casting concept, not the least because Farley, like Ledger, died young under tragic circumstances. But the shots also invoke philosophical questions with which the world is only starting to grapple in the age of advanced — and increasingly democratized — AI-powered creativity tools. After all, it's one thing to whip together a few images of a might-have-been casting decision, but we're rapidly entering a period in which machine learning might feasibly allow fans to recast favorite films using deepfakes, or even leverage similar software to create entirely movies on their own. Just yesterday, for instance, we heard about a guy who's painstakingly using AI tech to [generate an entire sci-fi movie](). For now, the outputs are spooky but not quite up to par. It's provocative, though, to imagine a day when a long-dead actor could be inserted into a movie made after he passed away — or even a new one, sprung from fans' imaginations and the startling creative potential of AI. **More on killer clowns:** [*Facial Recognition Tech Is No Match for Juggalo Makeup*]() ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()