AI Val Kilmer to Star in As Deep As the Grave

The world was so focused on Tilly Norwood we couldn’t even properly brace ourselves for the possibility of a posthumous AI Val Kilmer (vAI Kilmer?). A first-look image of AI Kilmer was unveiled today as part of filmmaker Coerte Voorhees’s upcoming drama As Deep As the Grave. The actor was cast in Voorhees’s film years before his death as priest and spiritualist Father Fintan but never had a chance to step on set due to his throat cancer. “It was very much designed around him. It drew on his Native American heritage and his ties to and love of the Southwest,” Voorhees told Variety. The film will feature a “significant” amount of AI Kilmer as it tackles various stages of his character’s life, from young to old, and will even reconstruct his voice, which was damaged after a tracheal procedure.

Voorhees was able to revive Kilmer by being given explicit permission from his estate and daughter Mercedes. “He always looked at emerging technologies with optimism as a tool to expand the possibilities of storytelling,” Mercedes said. “This spirit is something that we are all honoring within this specific film, of which he was an integral part.” (Kilmer’s final film saw him reprising his role as Iceman in Top Gun: Maverick, which also used AI to emulate his voice as he spoke to Tom Cruise through his computer.) Voorhees argued that while he did contemplate cutting Fintan, he found him to be a “major missing element” and his indie production couldn’t afford to recast him. “I’m all about working with our actors,” he explained. “But we can’t roll camera again … We’re not a big studio film. So we had to think of innovative ways to do it. And we realized the technology is there for us.” Alongside AI Kilmer are Abigail Lawrie, Wes Studi, Tom Felton, and Abigail Breslin. There is currently no release date, so you have plenty of time to prepare yourself for more AI Kilmer.