First Line Films has announced that the deceased, Val Kilmer, will star in a new historical drama titled ‘As Deep As The Grave.’
So far, we’ve had Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated music, AI work search engines, and now, the film industry might have just introduced a whole new use for it. In the last 48 hours, First Line Films confirmed that American actor Val Kilmer, best known for his roles in Top Gun and Joel Schumacher’s 1995 Batman Forever, is set to appear in Coerte Voorhees next movie.
Kilmer’s appearance in As Deep As the Grave as an AI-generated figure will make a first in cinematic history. The movie was originally pitched to Kilmer in 2020, but the actor’s physical health was deteriorating at the time. This made him unfit for the filming process.
In April 2025, Kilmer sadly passed away from pneumonia. In 2014, the actor was officially diagnosed with throat cancer, but had ignored several signs that had led up to the diagnosis. Unbeknownst to the public, it wasn’t until 2017 that this information was revealed. Kilmer would go on to recover from throat cancer in 2021. However, his official cause of death was pneumonia.
The Details of As Deep As The Grave
Following 2020 discussions with Voorhees, Kilmer was officially cast as Father Fintan in the movie, a Catholic priest and Native American spiritualist. Speaking in a press release, the director urged that, “at the time that he was cast, Kilmer expressed that the character of Fintan spoke to him both culturally and spiritually.”
Voorhees also expressed that his team have been in contact with Kilmer’s estate and daughter, Mercedes, to discuss the process of making an AI-generated figure of the late director for the movie. He says:
“His family kept saying how important they thought the movie was and that Val really wanted to be a part of this. He really thought it was [an] important story that he wanted his name on. It was that support that gave me the confidence to say, okay let’s do this. Despite the fact [that] some people might call it controversial, this is what Val wanted.”
