Robin Williams' Will Included A Strict Rule For Hollywood Producers

He then added a condition barring anyone from monetizing those rights for 25 years. That meant no one could use Williams for endorsements or on print ads.

Forbes has tried to roughly estimate how much Williams forfeited by his decision, and it might go as high as eight digits. Since Williams left no explanation, his motive remains ambiguous.

What Happened

The Hollywood Reporter, reviewing the trust, laid out three readings. One pertains to the use of CGI and other digitally-created cameos.

• (And yes, that includes using a computer to bring him back in a film.) The freeze runs until August 11, 2039, but that's not even the most remarkable thing about it.

• For Disney's 2023 centenary short "Once Upon a Studio," animators managed to salvage a few usable Genie lines, and approached Williams' estate for permission, which was granted.

• His idea wasn't to build a wall that separated people from his talent forever, but a timer — and the clock is ticking.

Key Details

For all his foresight, though, Williams could only delay the inevitable for so long.

• That's no doubt orders of magnitude better than hiring another actor to replace Williams or even resorting to deepfake technology to recreate his voice and likeness.

• Between the original "Aladdin" film and the threequel "Aladdin and the King of Thieves"the unused Genie material — amounting to 16 hours of recorded voice lines — could theoretically be edited into a whole.

What Reports Say

Coverage of the story so far points to:

• Continued reporting by Yahoo as more details emerge