Val Kilmer gets an AI movie role from beyond the grave

Val Kilmer passed away in 2025 after a long battle with throat cancer, but his acting career isn't over yet.

The late star is set to appear in a significant role in the upcoming indie film As Deep as the Grave, completely resurrected through generative AI. What makes this project wild is the fact that Kilmer never actually stepped foot on set or shot a single frame of footage before he died.

The actor who never shot a scene

Director Coerte Voorhees originally wrote the part of Father Fintan—a Catholic priest and Native American spiritualist—specifically around Kilmer five years prior to his passing, tapping into the actor's real-life Native American heritage and Southwestern roots. Kilmer was on the call sheet, but his declining health kept him from filming.

Over a grueling six-year indie production plagued by pandemic shutdowns and razor-thin budgets, the filmmakers initially cut the character to save cash. But once in the editing room, Voorhees realized the story simply fell apart without him. Without the cash to recast and roll cameras again, the team turned to generative AI.

With full blessing and participation from Kilmer's estate and his daughter Mercedes, the production reconstructed the actor across multiple life stages using family-provided archival photos and home video. They even modeled his voice on his actual speech post-tracheal surgery. Since the character suffers from tuberculosis, Kilmer's real-life battle with throat cancer ended up mirroring the role.

The production made sure to follow SAG guidelines and officially compensated the Kilmer estate. Notably, this isn't Kilmer's first dance with synthetic media—he famously teamed up with Sonantic to recreate his voice for Top Gun: Maverick back in 2022.

Why it matters

Hollywood has been tearing itself apart over AI ethics and likeness rights, but this case represents a unique grey area.

Unlike big studios using digital doubles for cheap nostalgia cash-grabs, this was an indie film using technology out of pure financial desperation to preserve an original script. The Voorhees brothers took the high road ethically: they secured full family blessing, followed SAG rules, and paid the estate.

Still, we think this sets a slippery precedent. Normally, an indie production in this bind would recast the part and give a living, working actor a big break opposite co-stars like Tom Felton and Abigail Breslin. Instead, the gig went to a synthetic ghost.

As AI performance tools get cheaper and better, the line between honoring an artist's legacy and turning departed icons into perpetual digital labor is getting dangerously thin. Whether audiences embrace or reject the final performance will likely dictate just how fast other budget-strapped productions follow suit.