Technological Miracle Allows Val Kilmer To Appear In Top Gun Sequel

This Thanksgiving, we will finally get to see the long-awaited and (because of Covid-19) long-delayed release of "Top Gun:  Maverick," the sequel to 1986's "Top Gun" that made Tom Cruise a superstar.

In the original, one of the key storylines was the rivalry between Tom Cruise's "Maverick" and Val Kilmer's "Iceman."  Now, Kilmer's name is all over the credits of the sequel, but I was curious as to how.  If you watch the tremendous documentary, "Val" on Amazon, you find out that as a result of Kilmer's fight with throat cancer, he essentially has no physical voice anymore.  So, I just figured that his condition would be written into his character in the movie.  I'm wrong.  Val Kilmer will appear as "Iceman," and will sound as Val Kilmer did prior to cancer thanks to some amazing technology.  Kilmer teamed with an AI company, Sonantic, to reconstruct his voice from past recordings.  All that you hear below was created using this tech, and it's how, apparently, you'll hear him on the big screen this November 19th .