Netflix Uses AI to Recreate Gene Wilder's Voice

Per reporting confirmed by Netflix Tudum, Deadline, Variety, and The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix's unscripted competition series Wonka's The Golden Ticket will feature a recreated voice of Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, generated with technology from ElevenLabs and used with the consent of Wilder's estate. Netflix Tudum confirms the series premieres on September 23, with a two-part finale on September 30. The production is a nine-part unscripted competition: 12 golden-ticket winners, each with a partner of their choice, navigate a series of challenges inside a recreation of Wonka's factory. Per Netflix Tudum, actor Rusty Goffe, who played an Oompa Loompa in the original 1971 film, will reprise the role - a detail that anchors the synthetic-voice use firmly to the franchise's human cast history.

Karen B. Wilder, Gene Wilder's wife, spoke for the Gene Wilder Estate: "More than five decades after Gene brought Willy Wonka to life, people of all ages and backgrounds around the world continue to find joy, laughter and inspiration in his performance. Gene had a remarkable ability to bring humor, wonder and heart into people's lives, and that connection has endured for generations. We are delighted that Wonka's The Golden Ticket celebrates the warmth and imagination that he brought to the role, introducing that magic to a new generation while honoring the fans who have cherished it for decades." (Netflix Tudum; AOL; Variety)

The Gene Wilder recreation fits a pattern of estate- and talent-licensed synthetic voices. Variety (May 2025) reported that ElevenLabs signed voice deals with Matthew McConaughey and Michael Caine; Deadline (June 2026) reported Caine's AI voice was used in a full production of Homer's *The Odyssey* audiobook via ElevenLabs' platform. These examples establish that ElevenLabs is building a catalog of named-voice licenses, not only bespoke studio work. Industry reporting (if.com.au/Eureka Productions) also cites the earlier case of Val Kilmer, whose likeness was recreated for a film with estate permission, as a related precedent.

For practitioners, the governance framing in each of these cases positions estate or talent consent as the gating control - not public domain status or historical precedent. Public reporting does not confirm whether on-air disclosures that a voice is synthetic will be included, nor whether ElevenLabs or Netflix will apply audio watermarks or provenance metadata. Both are observable indicators that teams building voice pipelines should monitor.

Teams integrating voice synthesis into production workflows should expect increasing demand for consent documentation, chain-of-custody metadata, and labeled synthetic-audio datasets for forensic detection. The Gene Wilder case also illustrates that posthumous voice use depends on estate relationships and legal structuring - not purely on technical capability. Engineers and legal teams working on production audio pipelines will need to plan for auditability when synthetic voice outputs appear in public-facing media.

• •Whether Netflix or production materials include explicit on-air disclosures that Gene Wilder's voice is AI-generated, as transparency norms are not yet standardized.
• •Technical developments from ElevenLabs on watermarking, metadata standards, or open detection toolkits.
• •Responses from SAG-AFTRA, writers guilds, and regulators, since posthumous voice replication is a recurring point in ongoing union negotiations over AI in entertainment.