Director plans to put Val Kilmer back on screen thanks to AI Estelle.Bronkhorst Thu, 03/19/2026 - 09:00 LOS ANGELES - The late American film star Val Kilmer could soon be "acting" on the big screen again after allowing a director to use AI tools to produce his likeness for an upcoming film, media reports said. Coerte Voorhees had tapped Kilmer, who died of pneumonia last year after years of battling throat cancer, for "As Deep as the Grave," about the pioneering archaeologist Ann Morris, a co-discoverer of the Anasazi civilisation. Kilmer was to play a Catholic priest named Fintan. "He was the actor I wanted to play this role," Voorhees told industry magazine Variety. "It drew on his Native American heritage and his ties to and love of the Southwest." He said Kilmer signed on to the project but later became too ill to begin filming. "I was looking at a call sheet the other day, and we had him ready to shoot," Voorhees said. "He was just going through a really, really tough time medically, and he couldn't do it." He said Kilmer's family had provided video images of Kilmer, who was known for keeping a vast archive of
