Hollywood's AI Summoning Technique: Death Is No Longer the End of Labor

Author: Sleepy.md

In 2025, Val Kilmer passed away due to complications from throat cancer at age 65. The once spirited Iceman in “Top Gun,” and the cool, charismatic Bruce Wayne in “The Dark Knight,” spent his later years suffering greatly from cancer.

He was a devout Christian Scientist, refusing modern medicine and trying to heal himself through prayer. Ultimately, this cost him his voice and his life.

However, less than a year after his death, he was “resurrected” in a film about Native American spiritual practices called “Deep as a Grave.” This was the first time in film history that generative AI technology was used to have a deceased actor perform a new role.

A soul that in life rejected modern technology and even tried to fight pathology with theology was, after death, turned into a digital specimen by the most advanced modern technology.

We once thought death was the only fair thing. But now it seems that the poor turn to dust unnoticed after death, while the rich continue to work for capitalists even after they’re gone.

Cyber Summoning

The story of “Deep as a Grave” takes place in the DeChelly Canyon in Arizona, a sacred site of the Navajo Nation.

Val Kilmer plays a Catholic priest and Native American spiritual guide, exploring the canyon with archaeologists searching for the resting place of ancient souls. The film’s underlying tone is one of reverence, questioning the vanished civilizations on this red land.

But reality is especially ironic. In Navajo tradition, death is an extremely taboo subject. They believe that after death, a malevolent energy called “Chindi” remains. This evil spirit leaves the body with the last breath, taking all imbalance and evil thoughts with it.

Navajo people deeply fear death. They avoid talking about the deceased, never call them by name, and shun contact with their belongings. They believe disturbing the dead’s peace invites great disaster.

And yet, “Deep as a Grave,” a film claiming to “respect indigenous history,” deliberately disrespects the dead by using AI to forcibly bring Val Kilmer back to life.

To complete his unfinished scenes due to illness, Silicon Valley engineers collected footage, audio clips from his youth, and even his hoarse breathing in late-stage throat cancer, feeding these digital remains into algorithms. In the cold server rooms, they calculated the priest’s appearance in the canyon discussing the soul’s journey.

Does Hollywood not realize this is an insult to Navajo culture? Of course they do. But they don’t care—they care more about box office and valuation.

How much money can a dead actor still make for living capitalists?

Posthumous Economics

To answer that, we need to understand Hollywood’s latest business model.

According to Forbes’ “Highest Earning Deceased Celebrities,” stars like Michael Jackson still generate billions annually after death. Previously, this “posthumous economy” relied on licensing rights—selling recordings, merchandise, tribute concerts. Estates simply collected rent, capitalizing on the star’s pre-existing assets.

But AI has completely changed this model.

Deep analysis by Hollywood industry outlet “The Ankler” shows California recently expanded its post-mortem portrait rights law to include AI-generated digital stand-ins. This means estates now sell not just “past works,” but the “labor time” of stars after death.

The commercialization of posthumous IP has officially shifted from copyright licensing to capacity extraction.

For studios, this is a perfect business cycle. In traditional filmmaking, actors are the most uncontrollable variable—they age, gain weight, have disputes over pay, or get involved in scandals that can shelve a film. They even unionize and strike for months.

AI-revived actors, however, are different. Capitalists have found the perfect employee.

Digital Val Kilmer will never age, never need a trailer, never rest, never get angry, and will never join a union. Just tell him to play a priest—he does. Ask him to deliver a sad line—his algorithmically calculated face will produce the most precise tear.

Marx predicted in “Capital” that capital would extract every drop of sweat from workers, but he probably didn’t imagine that in 2026 Hollywood, even the residual value of the dead could be exploited.

Who Is Selling Val Kilmer?

In this digital resurrection, Val Kilmer’s daughter plays a key role.

Facing public controversy, she issued a statement supporting the studio’s use of AI to revive her father. Her reason: “My father was a deeply spiritual person. He always viewed emerging technologies with optimism, believing they could expand artistic possibilities.”

Indeed, Kilmer had previously agreed to let AI reshape his voice for “Top Gun: Maverick” to give a dignified farewell with his old friend.

Using this as justification, she claims her father was optimistic about technology. This gives the studio a veneer of legitimacy and morality.

But family and capitalists are conflating concepts. A living person who uses digital prosthetics to complete an artistic swan song does not mean they are willing to have their entire soul and body stripped after death, becoming a puppet controlled by algorithms. The pre-death compromise was about dignity; the posthumous resurrection is a complete deprivation.

In 2023, the American Actors’ Guild launched a 118-day strike to oppose AI replacing actors. The final agreement requires explicit authorization from the estate (usually family) and payment for AI resurrection rights.

The union thought they had built a fortress. But reality shows it’s just a back door for capital. Now, capital doesn’t need to defeat unions—just pay off the family.

Kilmer may have been optimistic about technology, but that doesn’t mean he wanted his face and voice handed over to a role he never auditioned for, never read a script for, never filmed. Without digital wills, the deceased become silent lambs awaiting slaughter.

Capital and families have divided the spoils. But as viewers footing the bill, can we really see the “performance” they want on screen?

Electronic Pre-made Dishes in the Valley of Horror

It turns out, viewers don’t want to watch this.

A deep report in Wired points out that audiences today strongly reject AI-generated entertainment. No matter how much studios boast about technological breakthroughs, viewers see only dead fish eyes, twisted microexpressions, and a creepy plastic feel.

This rejection isn’t moral puritanism but a physiological response to the “uncanny valley” effect. When a non-human object looks and moves almost like a human but isn’t quite, it triggers feelings of discomfort and revulsion.

German philosopher Walter Benjamin, in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, introduced the concept of “Aura”—the unique presence and authenticity of a work of art rooted in its specific time and place. This irreplaceable sense of “here and now” is what he called “Aura.”

AI-generated Val Kilmer has drained all that aura.

He lacks physical weight, breathless pauses, spontaneous imperfections. Every expression is an average of past data, calculated by algorithms. His resurrection isn’t a technological miracle but Hollywood’s budget-strapped attempt to serve up electronic pre-made dishes.

If AI has drained the aura from performance, then what truly moving art is left?

Tears of the Iceman, Imperfect Reality

To answer, let’s rewind four years.

In 2022, Kilmer played Iceman in Top Gun: Maverick. He was already suffering from throat cancer, with a tracheostomy, completely voiceless, gaunt, physically frail.

The director didn’t use CGI to make him look young again, nor hide his illness. In the film, Iceman also has throat cancer, communicating via keyboard with Tom Cruise.

In that scene, Iceman types: “It’s time to let go.”

Cruise looks at the screen, eyes reddening, tears welling up.

Then Iceman struggles out a hoarse, faint sigh.

At that moment, everyone was moved.

Because that was real flesh and blood enduring pain. Two old friends, tangled for thirty years, saying a dignified farewell with broken bodies. That imperfect beauty shadowed by death, the vulnerability and dignity humans show in sickness—no top graphics card can replicate that.

In 2026’s Deep as a Grave, AI reconstructed Kilmer’s youthful face and gave him a perfect voice. He no longer suffers, no longer needs a tube, and gains eternal life in the digital realm.

In the real world, decayed flesh and digital stand-ins—what do we love more? The real suffering person, or the perfect digital reflection? When viewers shed tears over code-generated sadness, what are we truly moved by?

In the end, we can only empathize with genuine pain, not love a perfect data string. Authentic imperfection is always more powerful than false perfection.

Endless Labor Contracts

Kilmer endured illness in his final years. He lost his voice by refusing treatment, and with his tracheostomy, could only eat via tube. His body became a prison.

He should have found peace in death.

But today’s Hollywood sees death not as an end to labor, but as the start of a new, endless contract. His image, voice, and performance data are packaged as an asset called “Val Kilmer,” continuing to generate box office revenue.

In the wave of AI, what we see in resurrected stars is a glimpse of our future. When our data, habits, voices, and images can be perfectly copied and even sold before we die, physical presence becomes irrelevant.

Technology once promised to free humans from heavy labor, but in reality, it turns us into infinitely reproducible commodities. In life, it strips away your uniqueness; in death, it even confiscates your right to rest.

The Navajo were right. Let the dead rest—don’t disturb their spirits. Because when you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back—and it’s not only ghosts that stare, but the greedy eyes of capital.