TL;DR:

• A trailer for the Western As Deep As the Grave features the first authorised generative-AI performance by a major Hollywood actor, screened at CinemaCon in Las Vegas.
• UK voice-AI company Sonantic generated Val Kilmer’s speaking voice from archival recordings; his estate and daughter Mercedes worked on the visual deepfake.
• The production followed SAG-AFTRA guidelines and paid the Kilmer estate — a template that other actor-estate deals through ElevenLabs and Meta are now shaping.

Kilmer, who died in April 2025, was cast as Father Fintan — a Catholic priest and Native American spiritualist — before production delays meant he never shot scenes on set. Writer-director Coerte Voorhees has said the film and its themes were “very much designed around” Kilmer, and the estate’s statement framed Kilmer as having approached emerging technologies “with optimism as a tool to expand the possibilities of storytelling”.

The UK role: Sonantic

The voice work is the clearest UK link. London-based Sonantic specialises in emotionally expressive synthetic speech and was acquired by Spotify in 2022. Its prior Kilmer collaboration restored his voice for the 2022 cameo in Top Gun: Maverick; this production extends that work into a full-length performance spanning multiple time periods. The practical implication is that the UK sits at the technical centre of what is now the industry’s most scrutinised post-mortem performance.

The rules around it

Voorhees told Variety the production followed SAG-AFTRA guidelines and compensated the Kilmer estate financially. That route — estate-approved, contractually scoped, union-compliant — is the emerging standard for authorised digital performances. Bruce Willis licensed a digital twin in 2022 after his frontal-temporal dementia diagnosis; Matthew McConaughey and Michael Caine have licensed their voices; and the estates of Laurence Olivier, Judy Garland and James Dean have signed with voice marketplace ElevenLabs. Paris Hilton and Kendall Jenner have reportedly signed deals with Meta for AI avatars on its platforms.

Where UK film is caught

UK productions face a sharper regulatory test than US ones. The Intellectual Property Office is still consulting on image-rights and training-data frameworks, while the Creative Industries Council has pressed for clearer protections for performers. As Deep As the Grave is a US production relying on UK technical talent, which sidesteps the immediate UK policy questions — but the next wave of AI-assisted productions will likely involve UK performers and UK licensing, which is where the policy gap becomes material.

Looking forward

Scepticism remains. Morgan Freeman, Tom Hanks and Scarlett Johansson have spoken against unlicensed AI versions of themselves, and lawsuits over voice cloning are active in US courts. The box-office and critical reception of Kilmer’s performance will tell the industry whether audiences accept AI-revived lead actors — or whether the technique is best reserved for cameos.