Val Kilmer resurrected by AI in an unreleased film

© A Visionary Film

Val Kilmer is returning to the cinema… after his death

Because of the actor's illness, the director tried to cut out scenes involving Val Kilmer (which, anyway, couldn't have been filmed). But the production had to face the reality: it wasn't working. He had to be reintegrated in some way or another.

« Normally, we would have simply replaced the actor », explains Coerte Voorhees to Variety, who insists on wanting to work with real actors. But « we can't reshoot new scenes. We don't have the budget ». And the filming had already stretched over six years due to the pandemic and other complications.

That's where generative AI comes into play. The scenes with Val Kilmer could be generated using a digital twin of the actor. He will appear in « a significant portion » of the film. The project uses images of Kilmer from his youth (many were provided by his family) and from his older years, including recent ones. It's about showing the character at different stages of his life.

The soundtrack also makes use of the actor's voice, which was heavily altered by a tracheal intervention. The character played by Val Kilmer's AI double, Father Fintan, suffered from tuberculosis: "As for the voice, it's a truly unique opportunity for the character to reflect the real condition that the actor suffered from, thus creating a form of bridge," details John Voorhees, Coerte's brother and producer.

The family of Val Kilmer allowed the entire operation. Mercedes Kilmer indicates that her father «considered emerging technologies with optimism, seeing them as a tool to expand narrative possibilities.» Moreover, the actor believed that «it was an important story he wanted to associate his name with,» says the director. «It was this support that gave me the necessary confidence to say: okay, let's do it. Even if some might find it controversial, that's what Val wanted.»

Now it remains to see the final result. Generative AI has so far mainly been used in special effects sequences, less frequently to «

» actors — even though the creators of Tilly Norwood dream of it. Will the technology be able to overcome the mountains that have so far been insurmountable in the «

strange valley

» in this new film? It's hard to judge based on the single image provided by the production.

Source: Variety