- Val Kilmer will return through generative AI for an upcoming film
- Director Coerte Voorhees says “it’s what Val wanted”
- Even Kilmer’s children have expressed their support, but it’s still a little unsettling.
The late Hollywood icon Val Kilmer is about to make a posthumous appearance on the big screen, and it’s all thanks to generative AI.
According to Variety, Kilmer, who died in 2025, will be resurrected for the historic action film. As deep as the grave directed by Coerte Voorhees, for which Kilmer was cast in 2020. However, his failing health and throat cancer diagnosis prevented him from reaching the set, but despite not having shot a single scene, Voorhees is looking for alternative ways to keep the actor at the center of the film.
Using ‘state-of-the-art generative AI’, Kilmer’s role in the film will be visualized using recorded voice samples as well as various images of Kilmer throughout the decades to help depict the character at different stages of life. According to Voorhees, the AI-generated character will star in “a significant portion” of the final product, and he doubled down on his creative choices when speaking to Variety.
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“He was the actor I wanted to play this role,” says Voorhees, adding, “It was very much designed around him. It was based on his Native American heritage and his ties and love of the Southwest. The other day I was looking at a call sheet and we had him ready to shoot. He was going through a very, very difficult medical time and couldn’t do it.” But Voorhees hasn’t done it alone.
Surprisingly positive approval and support from Kilmer’s own family also helped spearhead the creative choice, which was backed by his daughter Mercedes and son Jack, who claim this is something their late father would have supported as well.
“He always looked optimistically at emerging technologies as a tool to expand the possibilities of storytelling,” Mercedes Kilmer shared in a statement. “This spirit is something we all honor in this specific film, of which he was an integral part.”
The upcoming film, scheduled for release in 2026, is based on the true story of Southwestern archaeologists Ann and Earl Morris (Abigail Lawrie and Tom Felton) set between the 1920s and 1940s. Kilmer was cast as Native American Catholic priest and spiritualist Father Fintan, aligning with Voorhees’ previous statement. But even though the project has overwhelming support from Kilmer’s family, it still doesn’t sit well with me as a moviegoer.
Analysis: The uncanny valley of everything
Firstly, when you look at the AI-generated teaser image of Val Kilmer, it goes without saying that what has been produced is quite impressive. The final product looks like Kilmer, and it’s clear that whatever generative AI model the production team used has managed to read existing photographs of the actor. However, the strange valley surrounding all of this baffles me a little.
At first glance, it’s just Val Kilmer, but the more time I spend examining the image, the more it becomes even clearer that it’s AI-generated, and the artificial sunset in the background doesn’t help either. The best comparison I can make is The polar express (2004), a movie I saw as a child that gave me the million-dollar question: Are those actors real?
And I know what you’re thinking: “What happens when this is used with musicians?” For me there is a big difference. When you attend an event like the ABBA Voyage residency in London, which uses holographic technology to bring the band members to life, you enter not only knowing that everything is designed via hologram but with the intention of appreciating the technical and artistic skill that goes into creating such a spectacle.
This technological integration raises, perhaps, deeper questions, such as how Kilmer’s AI character will affect the movie experience.
Will Kilmer’s appearance be a big distraction for moviegoers, since they already know it’s AI-generated? Will it overshadow the film’s message? Or will viewers simply put this aside and digest the character as if he were Val Kilmer himself? Either way, you can bet you’ll have my full verdict once it’s published.
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