When Val Kilmer died in April 2025 with a film unfinished, producers turned to AI to complete his performance. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences watched and then rewrote its rulebook. What emerged last Friday wasn't just a policy update. It was the first time in Oscar history that the Academy drew a legal line between a human performance and a machine-generated one.

The awards AI completion of Kilmer's final role raised a question nobody had prepared for: if technology reconstructs a performance using a deceased actor's likeness and voice, does that qualify for acting honours?

Only........

© The News International