Val Kilmer Resurrected by AI: ‘As Deep as the Grave’ Releases Seven Minutes of Footage Featuring Younger Version of Actor
Val Kilmer, who passed away in April 2025 after years of health struggles stemming from throat cancer, appears in new footage from the independent film "As Deep as the Grave" in a form he never filmed himself: a younger, AI-generated version of the actor, constructed after his death. Director Coerte Voorhees released seven minutes of the footage, offering one of the more substantive public looks at how generative AI is being used to recreate a recognizable Hollywood figure for a dramatic narrative.
To build the digital performance, Voorhees and his team worked with Kilmer's family archives - personal materials that provided reference points beyond what was publicly available. They also conducted close study of Kilmer's on-screen work, focusing particularly on his performances in Michael Mann's "Heat" (1995) and Joel Schumacher's "Batman Forever" (1995), two films in which Kilmer's physicality, voice, and mannerisms are well documented and widely recognized. The combination of private and public source material was used to train or guide the generative AI system responsible for producing the likeness.
The project sits at an intersection that the film industry has been navigating with increasing urgency - how to handle AI recreations of real performers, particularly deceased ones. Unlike some high-profile studio uses of digital de-aging or posthumous recreation, "As Deep as the Grave" is an independent production, which means it operates outside the major studio agreements with actors' unions that have begun to address AI likeness rights. The involvement of Kilmer's family suggests at least some degree of estate cooperation, though the broader ethical and legal framework for such projects remains unsettled.
Generative AI tools capable of synthesizing realistic human performances have matured considerably in recent years, and "As Deep as the Grave" represents one of the more visible attempts to apply them in a narrative film context. Whether the footage holds up dramatically - and how audiences respond to seeing a beloved actor rendered through algorithms rather than his own presence - will likely be as closely watched as the technical execution itself. The release of this preview material appears intended to open that conversation ahead of the film's wider release.
