Director Coerte Voorhees says he is using AI to feature Val Kilmer in “a significant part” in an indie film, with the cooperation of the late actor's estate
Five years prior to his death in 2025, Val Kilmer was cast as Father Fintan, a Catholic priest and Native American spiritualist, in “As Deep as the Grave.”
VarietyBrent Lang
Context & Ripple Effects
This project moves beyond the earlier use of AI to alter an actor’s apparent age: AI de-aging work on actors showed how digital tools could modify performances already captured on screen.
It also extends a broader production arc from AI-assisted versions of films in other languages, where performers’ recorded material was used to make a work travel farther, toward estate-authorized continuation of a role after an actor’s death.
First-order effects
“As Deep as the Grave” can retain Father Fintan as a significant on-screen part despite Kilmer’s death, with his estate participating in the use of AI.
Kilmer’s estate becomes an active approval partner in how the actor’s likeness and performance are incorporated into the indie production.
Second-order effects
The arrangement gives other filmmakers and estates a concrete example of an estate-approved AI performance, increasing pressure to define approval, compensation and creative-control terms before production.
VFX and AI-production vendors gain a use case that combines performance reconstruction with rights clearance, rather than treating synthetic imagery as a purely technical post-production task.
Third-order effects
If such arrangements become repeatable, performer likenesses may increasingly be managed as licensable screen assets whose use can continue through estates, alongside conventional archival footage and effects work.
The dividing line in Hollywood AI adoption may shift from whether an image can be generated to whether consent, provenance and control can be documented well enough for release.
The trend: Estate-authorized AI performance is emerging as a new form of screen-rights commercialization, extending AI’s role from altering living actors’ work to managing enduring performer likenesses.
Val would've loved this. He spent the last 1/3 of his life obsessed with Mark Twain, a man who absolutely loved exploiting new technology to make a buck even at the expense of his own legacy https://variety.com/...
Val Kilmer is starring in a new movie via AI. His daughter Mercedes defends the decision: “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,
An AI version of Val Kilmer appears in the new film As Deep as the Grave. Kilmer was originally cast in 2015, but was unable to film due to his battle with throat cancer. The role has now been completed using AI, with the approval of his daughter. [image]
“No no his surviving family is fine with it.” — Interesting just out of curiosity though who gets the payment on the likeness rights because y'know he's dead and they're not.
The way I forgot he died and mourned his passing just to read the rest of the headline and get mad in the span of a second. variety.com/2026/film/ne...