A year ago, in April 2025, Hollywood star Val Kilmer passed away, putting an end to a storied career – or so we thought.
The news arose yesterday that Kilmer – or at least an AI replica of him – is to appear in a new movie, As Deep as the Grave, by brothers Coerte and John Voorhees.
The pair had originally written one of the roles in the film for Val Kilmer.
“Mr. Kilmer’s cancer diagnosis forced him to abandon the project, and he died soon after in April 2025.
But now, using generative AI tools, a digital replica of Mr. The AI-generated likeness was created from a trove of videos, images and audio recorded before Mr. Kilmer has been added into the movie. Kilmer’s death.”
“Mr. Kilmer’s daughter Mercedes told The New York Times that her father ‘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’.”
Death is no longer a valid excuse to get out of your contract.
“’I do not care how much permission they had to do this, no one should be allowed to do this’, a [social media commenter] remarked. ‘It should be illegal to resurrect the visage of dead people with genAI imo’.
Someone else wrote, ‘No amount of moral dressing is going to change how sick and greedy this is. The family should be ashamed tbh.’
‘This is difficult, another person posted. ‘If Val wanted this, and desired to go with ‘one final hurray’, maybe it is acceptable. (When Oliver Reed died during Gladiator, they used a body double + light CGI to finish his scenes) But, when this becomes the norm…’”
Paul Serran is a Brazilian writer and musician, a contributor to The Gateway Pundit since 2023. Follow him on X | Truth Social
