Audiences Must Draw the Line At a Movie Starring an AI Val Kilmer
Greg Ehrhardt, OnScreen Blog Editor
This editorial was originally going to be framed around how Toy Story 5 should be the red line audiences finally stop crossing in movie patronage. We’ve literally had enough of Woody, Buzz, and the OG characters. Between the 4 movies and the dozens of shorts, there is no more story to tell. If you want to keep the franchise going, fine, but with a whole new slate of characters and voice actors.
But then I found out there’s a feature film coming out starring an AI version of Val Kilmer, with the Kilmer estate's permission. It is called “As Deep as The Grave” (a title pointedly chosen, I imagine)
This will not be a cameo appearance from Kilmer. Nope, This is STARRING an artificial reenactment of an actor no longer with us.
Nope. This is the red line. No one should go see this movie in theatres, on Netflix, or play it for free in your backyard. Not even out of morbid curiosity (pun intended). Not even a short clip on YouTube.
Nope. Nope. Nope.
This is our last stand. Invoke all the stirring movie speeches you need to give yourself the strength to resist, but this is the red line.
Because this is where movies will be headed the second they have any success trying it, and maybe even then, they will move forward anyway with a string of movies every year starring actors who have departed.
The reaction I have seen so far to this Val Kilmer movie is near-unanimous. No one wants to bother with it for the right reasons. This is encouraging; however, I fear this will not hold the second they announce an AI James Gandolfini, Robert Redford, Kim Novak, Marlon Brando, Sidney Poitier, pick your favorite actor of the last 100 years, starring in a new movie coming your way in 2030, when Hollywood fails again to develop a modern box office star.
It is easy for actors to say no when they are alive, but will their estate say no when they are offered $50 million dollars to sign on the dotted line?
AI just makes it too easy for these deals to come to fruition.
It is not even debatable that movie audiences are addicted to nostalgia (I mean, just look at this Street Fighter trailer as a hyper-recent example). What is more nostalgic than seeing your favorite movie actor alive and well, for you to live in your past one more day?
I enjoy talking about the past and sometimes reliving it. My favorite movies shaped my tastes and gave me a litany of movie quotes I use in everyday conversation, even though those movies are 30-40 years old.
But there’s reliving the past, and then there’s the past coming to live with you in the present. The latter is what we must say NO to, unequivocally, and without prejudice, today.
And now, ironically, I’m doing my first-ever column about face, because what Toy Story 5 has going for it in 2026 is one more ride with Tom Hanks and Tim Allen and the rest of the gang while they are still capable of performing at an A+ level. Toy Story fans should patronize this movie, and movie fans should perhaps not turn away from Toy Story 5 so reflexively.
Because once it's gone, it's gone; at least, that’s the way life is supposed to be. To quote Millie from “Midnight Mass” when talking about growing old and dying instead of living forever as bloodthirsty vampires humans:
“We Faded Away, And That's How It's Supposed To Work”