Did actors Jon Voight and Angelina Jolie "join forces for a non-woke production studio" named "Time for a Change"? No, that's not true: The claim was first published on a self-described satire website. The article was not even an original, manually crafted piece -- it was an AI-generated story.
The claim originated from an article (archived here) on esspots.com published on April 13, 2024, under the title:
Breaking: Jon Voight and Angelina Jolie Join Forces for a Non-Woke Production Studio, 'Time For A Change'
It began:
In a surprising turn of events, Hollywood icons Jon Voight and Angelina Jolie have announced their collaboration to establish a new production studio aimed at promoting traditional values and steering clear of woke ideologies. The move comes amidst growing discontent within the entertainment industry, with many actors and filmmakers expressing frustration over the prevailing political and social narratives in mainstream media.
This is how it appeared at the time of writing:
(Source: Esspots.com screenshot taken on Tue April 16 15:21:27 2024 UTC)
The article supposedly cited the actors' words in what was described as a "recent interview" but did not name or link the source that published the supposed interview.
Google searches for their names combined with the studio's description (archived here) or its purported name (archived here) did not produce any results corroborating the article, showing only duplicates of the claim or similar unsubstantiated stories about other celebrities. One of them was previously debunked by Lead Stories here.
According to the content moderation platform Hive Moderation (archived here), the text of the story on Esspots.com was generated by AI:
(Source: Hive Moderation screenshot taken on Tue Apr 16 15:20:21 2024 UTC)
The self-description of the supposedly existing writer who published the article in question stated that the man specializes in satirical pieces. That self-description was AI-generated, too, according to Hive Moderation:
(Source: Hive Moderation screenshot taken on Tue Apr 16 15:59:48 2024 UTC)
In the About section (archived here), Esspot.com says that the website does not publish fact-based journalistic stories:
Welcome to the US page of Esspots (A Subsidiary of SpaceXMania.com specializing in Satire and Parody News), your one-stop destination for satirical news and commentary about the United States of America. Our team of writers and editors is dedicated to bringing you the latest and greatest in fake news and absurdity, all with a healthy dose of humor and satire.
That is further emphasized in the tab showing a disclaimer (archived here) that reads:
Before you proceed to read our content, we would like to emphasize that nothing on this website is real. All of the articles, stories, and commentary found on Esspots.com are entirely fictitious and created for the purpose of entertainment only.
We understand that satire can sometimes be mistaken for actual news or events, but we want to make it clear that we do not publish factual or accurate information.
A screenshot capturing the article that is the focus of this fact check was shared in a viral post (saved here) on Facebook. It was published by an account named SpaceX Fanclub (archived here) that listed esspot.com as its website and repeated one more time:
We post SATIRE, nothing on this page is real.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about the entertainment industry can be found here.
Lead Stories fact checks on claims related to esspots.com are here, to SpaceX Fanclub are here.
