Val Kilmer Will Be Resurrected With AI For As Deep As The Grave

As Deep As The Grave will feature an AI likeness of Val Kilmer, completing scenes he was too ill to perform.

Actors sometimes die mid-production – it’s a sad fact of life. Sometimes technology is used to complete and/or preserve their performances – The Crow leaps immediately to mind, where the use of body doubles and a little CGI trickery temporarily resurrected Brandon Lee. So too does Gladiator, in which Oliver Reed’s performance was completed after he drank himself to death.

But Val Kilmer‘s post-mortem return to the screen is a bit different. Kilmer, who died on April 1, 2025 of pneumonia complicated by throat cancer, will appear in the upcoming historical adventure As Deep As The Grave, with his likeness recreated via generative AI.

Now, your first and most correct response is probably “Dear God, no.”, But a couple of things make this interesting (note, I said “interesting”, not “good”).

One is that Kilmer never shot any of his scenes for the film, which is written and directed by Coerte Voorhees. Although Kilmer reportedly signed up for the project in 2020, he was too ill to participate in principal photography in 2023. Which makes this, I think, the first time an actor has been wholly recreated through AI, without body doubles or voice actors. For an actual feature film, mind you, not some crappy 30 second clip.

The other is that it has the full support of Kilmer’s family and estate, with daughter Mercedes and son Jack endorsing the project, according to an interview with Voorhees in Variety.

Voorhees said “His family kept saying how important they thought the movie was and that Val really wanted to be a part of this. He really thought it was important story that he wanted his name on. It was that support that gave me the confidence to say, okay let’s do this. Despite the fact some people might call it controversial, this is what Val wanted.”

Mercedes Kilmer also released a statement, saying of her father, “He always looked at emerging technologies with optimism as a tool to expand the possibilities of storytelling. This spirit is something that we are all honoring within this specific film, of which he was an integral part.”

Originally titled Canyon Del Muerto, As Deep As the Grave is based on the lives of pioneering archaeologists Earl and Ann Axtell Morris, who investigated the Navajo and Anasazi cultures in the American Southwest. Tom Felton and Abigail Lawrie play the Morrises, with Abigail Breslin, Tatanka Means, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Wes Studi, Finn Jones, Ewen Bremner, Bronson Webb, Hanako Footman, and
Q’orianka Kilcher in support. The film is currently seeking distribution, so we’ll see it when we see it.