{"id":2336743,"date":"2026-03-19T12:48:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T12:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2336743"},"modified":"2026-03-19T12:48:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T12:48:21","slug":"ai-generated-val-kilmer-to-star-in-new-movie-a-year-after-actors-death-ents-arts-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/ai-generated-val-kilmer-to-star-in-new-movie-a-year-after-actors-death-ents-arts-news\/","title":{"rendered":"AI-generated Val Kilmer to star in new movie a year after actors’ death | Ents & Arts News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Val Kilmer is to \u200bposthumously appear in an action-adventure film, a year after his death from pneumonia.<\/p>\n

The company behind the movie, First Line Films, say it is the first-ever performance enabled by generative artificial intelligence<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Top Gun star was originally cast in As Deep As The Grave five years ago but had been unable to work on set due to illness.<\/p>\n

He will play Catholic priest and Native American spiritualist Father Fintan. Kilmer previously claimed Cherokee ancestry and was a vocal supporter of Native American rights.<\/p>\n

The filmmakers say they have worked closely with Kilmer’s estate and his daughter, Mercedes.<\/p>\n

They said in a press release: “At the time that \u2060he was cast, Kilmer expressed that the character of Fintan spoke to him both culturally and spiritually.”<\/p>\n

Written and directed by Coloradan Coerte \u200cVoorhees, the film follows southwestern archaeologists Ann Morris, played by Tin Star actress Abigail Lawrie, and Harry Potter star Tom Felton.<\/p>\n

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More on Artificial Intelligence<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

It focuses on their excavations in Canyon de Chelly, Arizona, also exploring the lives of the \u200bNavajo people.<\/p>\n

First Line Films, which is based in \u200bNew Mexico, has not revealed what technology it will be using, but described it as “state-of-the-art generative AI technology”.<\/p>\n

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\n \"Val\n <\/div>\n

Image:<\/span>
\n Val Kilmer in Top Gun, 1986. Pic: Paramount\/Kobal\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

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In 2021, Kilmer used the AI voice platform Sonantic to develop an AI-generated version of his voice, which was permanently damaged after undergoing a tracheostomy for throat cancer.<\/p>\n

It used archival audio Kilmer provided, and was used in the Top Gun sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, in which Kilmer reprised his famous Iceman role.<\/p>\n

As Deep as the Grave uses Kilmer’s voice from after his tracheostomy.<\/p>\n

The movie, which is in post-production, is expected to be released later this year.<\/p>\n

California-born Kilmer, who was one of the best-paid actors in the 1990s, had numerous spats with directors<\/strong><\/a> over the years, earning a reputation for being difficult to work with.<\/p>\n

He famously admitted he had not been keen to take the role that made him famous, Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazansky in Top Gun alongside Tom Cruise in 1986.<\/p>\n

He also portrayed Batman in the 1995 film Batman Forever and received critical acclaim for his portrayal of rock singer Jim Morrison in the 1991 movie The Doors.<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n

Last year, the launch of the first fully AI-generated actor, Tilly Norwood<\/strong>, <\/strong><\/a>created waves in the entertainment industry, as it continues to grapple with innovations in AI threatening the roles of its workforce.<\/p>\n

SAG-AFTRA, the US actors’ union, recently wrapped up a month of negotiations with the major studios without reaching a new deal.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, in the UK, members of the actors’ union Equity voted overwhelmingly to refuse digital scanning on set<\/strong><\/a> in a bid to secure adequate AI protections.<\/p>\n

The AI debate has also impacted the music world, with plans to let AI firms use music without permission abandoned by the UK government<\/strong><\/a> earlier this week.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source news.sky.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Val Kilmer is to \u200bposthumously appear in an action-adventure film, a year after his death from pneumonia. The company behind the movie, First Line Films, say it is the first-ever performance enabled by generative artificial intelligence. The Top Gun star was originally cast in As Deep As The Grave five years ago but had been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2336744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2336743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/AI-generated-Val-Kilmer-to-star-in-new-movie-a-year.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2336743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2336743"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2336743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2336745,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2336743\/revisions\/2336745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2336744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2336743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2336743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2336743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}