Overview
- The film's first trailer, shown Wednesday at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, unveiled a fully synthetic on-screen Kilmer built with generative AI.
- Kilmer’s heirs approved the use of his likeness and supplied photos and footage, which the team used to model the character across different ages.
- Producers say every on-screen appearance is AI-generated and they plan to use Kilmer’s own voice for dialogue, with the character written with tuberculosis to reflect his altered speech late in life.
- Director Coerte Voorhees says he cast Kilmer for the role years before the actor died in 2025, but illness and pandemic delays stopped filming and led the team to this approach.
- The drama follows archaeologist Ann Axtell Morris and features Abigail Lawrie, Tom Felton, Abigail Breslin, Tatanka Means, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Wes Studi, and Finn Jones, with the reveal drawing fresh debate over AI use after Kilmer’s earlier AI-assisted voice work in Top Gun: Maverick.