"We have to contend with this technology one way or the other," says Mercedes Kilmer, his daughter. "And avoiding it, it’s not necessarily the way"

The AI revolution has divided Hollywood into two very distant groups. One side sees artificial intelligence as a way to save significant money on special effects, screenwriting, and even actors. The other side sees it as an existential threat that could eliminate countless jobs, suck the heart and soul out of film production, and generate dull, formulaic content that will continue to drive audiences away from theaters.

Mercedes Kilmer, daughter of the late Val Kilmer, is aligning herself with the former camp. She has allowed the upcoming historical action-adventure film As Deep as the Grave to bring her father back to the screen using generative AI.

Val Kilmer was cast in the movie near the end of his life, when AI was already being used to revive his speaking voice that he lost due to throat cancer, but he died before production could start. Instead of recasting the part, they used AI to bring him back in a somewhat eerie fashion.

“I started off as a way to overcome the limitations of his illness, but then it evolved into something that he really was like, ‘Oh, wait. I have a chance to actually set a precedent,” Mercedes Kilmer told The Today Show. “It’s kind of fallen into two camps. People that maybe have a more precarious position in the industry and are worried and see AI as a threat — which is absolutely valid — and younger people, younger actors and musicians. I’m a musician and a lot of people that I know are so scared of this technology.”

“At the same time, I’ve gotten a lot of like really good responses from people — older people, people maybe more established in the industry — that see it as a way to protect that actors’ ownership of their IP,” she continued. “We have to contend with this technology one way or the other. And avoiding it, it’s not necessarily the way. It’s much easier to structure the rights if you proactively license something.”

As Deep as the Grave is the story of North America’s first female archeologist, Ann Morris, and her work to uncover the world of the Ancestral Puebloans in the 1920s. It stars Abigail Lawrie, Tom Felton, Hanako Footman, Ewen Bremner, and Abigail Breslin. 

“Kilmer was the actor I wanted to play this role,” As Deep as the Grave writer/director Coerte Voorhees told Variety in March. “It was very much designed around him. It drew on his Native American heritage and his ties to and love of the Southwest. I was looking at a call sheet the other day, and we had him ready to shoot. He was just going through a really, really tough time medically, and he couldn’t do it.”

“His family kept saying how important they thought the movie was and that Val really wanted to be a part of this,” he continued. “He really thought it was 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 some people might call it controversial, this is what Val wanted.”

Last year, many Hollywood insiders expressed outrage when Dutch comedian Eline Van der Velden unveiled Tilly Norwood, an AI-generated “actress” that was supposedly going to star in major projects. Flesh-and-blood actress Betty Gilpin responded to the news with an open letter to Tilly Norwood in the Hollywood Reporter. 

“While I myself was certainly never AI hot, I had a few good years of human hot during which construction workers on Canal and moguls at Sugarfish would stammer at my silhouette,” she wrote. “It felt like power. But then they’d treat me like property, and that felt like handcuffs. Maybe that’s why you were created. Property without zits or opinions. I wonder if an eyelash or toothshine of mine from a screenshot 20 years ago is one speck of your billions of Hot Young Actresses mosaic that is your not-real face…I’m like you in one more way, Ms. Norwood. I’m made up of a million bits of plagiarism of every person I’ve had the privilege to come across. People I want to keep connecting with — in meadows, in barns, on screens — which you can not do with someone who is not real. Go home, Tilly.”