AI replica of Val Kilmer to appear in film after his death.

An AI-generated likeness of the late actor Val Kilmer will appear in the movie “As Deep as the Grave,” set for release later this year. (Instagram via screenthrill)

By REGGIE UGWU

A photorealistic artificial intelligence likeness of Val Kilmer, the “Top Gun,” “Batman Forever” and “Heat” actor who died from throat cancer last year, will appear in a new movie he had planned to shoot before being hindered by his illness.

Coerte Voorhees, the movie’s writer and director, said the AI likeness had been created in collaboration with Kilmer’s estate and would appear in a large portion of “As Deep as the Grave,” about an archaeologist’s discovery of an ancient Native American civilization.

“This movie is absolutely a tribute to Val Kilmer and honoring this last character that he was going to play,” Voorhees said. “We think this is a unique scenario that is going to prove to a lot of people the right way to do this.”

Using a trove of previously recorded videos, images and audio, the filmmakers were able to create a photorealistic digital model of Kilmer using a combination of publicly available generative AI tools. (Voorhees declined to say which ones.) They used traditional editing software to digitally insert the likeness into previously filmed scenes and also used AI to create new scenes around the likeness.

“If we were still in the process of physically filming, we would have considered recasting,” Voorhees said. “But that just wasn’t in the cards.”

Kilmer’s daughter, Mercedes, said in a statement that her father was a deeply spiritual man and had resonated with his character, a real-life Catholic priest and Native American spiritualist who worked with archaeologist Ann Axtell Morris in the 1920s.

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

Voorhees and his brother Justin, a producer of “As Deep as the Grave,” approached Mercedes Kilmer last year about using generative AI technology to create her father’s likeness. In Val Kilmer’s absence, the brothers had completed an earlier version of the film without him that they felt was incomplete. The new version is in postproduction and has a planned release this year.