RIP Mad Mardigan 🖤
News
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
This dude made movies so good.
Tombstone Batman Top gun The saint Prince of Egypt Red planet
Shame his career was cut short. I assume he lost his speech because God needed it after watching Prince of Egypt.
SIR/MADAM! I call foul! Most foul!
Your list is horribly disingenuous, due to the absence of Val Kilmer's greatest movie:
Ah hell no.
Real Genius. That's where it's at
One of my favorites. I own that film. He died way to young.
I watched that one much later in life but it was in fact good.
It is a cinematic triumph. Peter Cushing himself called it his greatest role! Well, he might have said that.
Fun fact that I actually just learned today. The cast made from Mr Cushing's face for his scene in Top Secret was used by the SFX wizards working on Rogue One to digitally recreate the actor for the movie.
Imagine that, a casting for a prosthetic made over 40 years ago was used to recreate the image of Peter Cushing so that he could appear as Grand Moff Tarkin again.
Have to admit, that rather stunned me when I read it.
a casting for a prosthetic made over 40 years ago was used to recreate the image of Peter Cushing so that he could appear as Grand Moff Tarkin again.
They were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
In the end it was really creepy to have a dead person have so much screen time in a movie.
Wow
The greatest movie ever made in fact ☻ (IMO of course). I just watched it this morning after hearing the news. RIP Nick Rivers
Uhh, Heat???????
One of my favorite movies of all time. The gun battle in the streets is an all-time great scene.
Im going to have to re-watch. I remember being so bored when I was a kid.
It's a long movie, but so so so excellent
Does anyone else have a mandela effect about Val Kilmer being dead already? I feel like I have read about his death mutliple times over the past decade and then had a mandela effect that I thought he had already died, but then also when I heard any story about him I also have a mandela effect that I thought he was dead.
He was very sick for a bit and hid it for awhile so there was lots of talk about his health for a bit then he disappeared from the public eye for awhile because he was fighting cancer and recovering. He never rejoined the public eye to the degree he used to be. He was in Top Gun Maverick though which I remember being kind of a big deal because he hadn't been in much for awhile and of course had had lots of trouble with speech following the cancer I believe.
No, but I knew he's been pretty bad off for a long time
How has nobody mentioned Real Genius yet?
That was the first movie I saw him in. He defintely stole all of the scenes with his great acting chops.
I got a reply from him on Reddit once. Well, maybe his assistant, but whatever. What a bummer. Definitely thought is peak role was on Top Secret. Loved that film so much! Guess I'm going to have to go watch it again
Tombstone and kiss kiss bang bang are my favorites
How has Willow not been mentioned? He was really good as a halfling!
But Kilmer didnt play a halfling
Shhhh! I'm trying to get people to watch it!
But it has Kilmer in it, that's all you have to say
And Joanne Whalley (who was briefly married to Val Kilmer)
His role as Gay Perry in Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang is underrated. He owned the role and outshone even the protagonist!
R.I.P. legend.
He was so great as Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's Doors movie. The only one who could have played that role.
Here are some cool facts about the movie:
-
- Val Kilmer didn’t just play Jim Morrison—he became him. Before CGI, before deepfakes, there was Val Kilmer. He spent six months rehearsing, learned 50 Doors songs, and recorded vocals so convincing that Ray Manzarek couldn’t tell them apart from Jim’s. Kilmer even paid out of his own pocket to film a full performance demo for Oliver Stone. But it wasn’t just mimicry—it was method acting gone full Lizard King. He wore Morrison’s leather pants, spoke like him between takes, and according to crew memos, requested not to be addressed by his real name on set. Now that’s rock ’n’ roll commitment—or possession.
-
- The real Patricia Kennealy plays the priestess in her own fictionalized wedding scene. Talk about meta. Rock journalist and Wiccan high priestess Patricia Kennealy, who actually participated in a handfasting ceremony with Jim Morrison in real life, appears in the movie—but not as herself. Instead, she plays the priestess marrying Meg Ryan’s Pamela Courson and Kilmer’s Morrison. The kicker? Kennealy has denounced the film’s portrayal of her, claiming much of her dialogue was given to Courson’s character instead. She called it a betrayal, but in a twist worthy of Morrison’s own poetry, she helped perform her own cinematic erasure.
-
- The script was filtered through dozens of people—including Morrison’s parents and Elektra Records. Oliver Stone didn’t just write a rock movie—he had to negotiate with lawyers, estates, labels, and parents. Morrison’s family only allowed dream-like flashbacks. Pamela Courson’s parents restricted any implication that she influenced Jim’s death. Meanwhile, the band members weren’t all on the same page: Ray Manzarek refused to participate, while John Densmore and Robby Krieger consulted on the film, each bringing their own version of the myth. The result? A movie as much shaped by censorship and grief as by art and music.
-
- Kilmer’s live performances in the film weren’t lip-synced—they were sung live over original master tapes. Most music biopics fake it with overdubs or studio trickery. Not The Doors. Val Kilmer sang live, blending his voice with the original multitrack recordings of the Doors, minus Jim’s lead vocals. The effect was chilling. He rehearsed daily and performed so hard during the five-day shoot of “The End” at the Whisky a Go Go recreation that he nearly lost his voice. This wasn’t a musical performance—it was a séance, captured on film and played back like a ghostly echo from the Summer of Love.
-
- Nearly everyone turned it down before Oliver Stone picked up the torch. Before Stone got behind the camera, the Doors biopic passed through Quentin Tarantino, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and more. Bono, Michael Hutchence, Johnny Depp, and even John Travolta were considered for Morrison. But it was Stone’s obsession and Kilmer’s uncanny embodiment that finally got the film made. Stone even had to abandon Evita (sorry, Madonna) to make room for the psychedelic circus that The Doors became. The studio fights, lawsuits, casting drama—it’s a miracle the film ever made it to theaters. But like the band it depicts, it survived in chaos and emerged as something unforgettable.
https://www.thatericalper.com/2025/04/02/5-wildly-unknown-facts-about-the-doors-movie/--
Thanks so much for writing this! That movie was an absolute trip. Got me way into the doors and trust me, it was obvious that Kilmer became Morrison by knowing very little outside just about watching the movie. But all these details you wrote here make it so much more interesting!
I remember stopping the DVD to Google if he was actually singing because it felt so goddamned authentic to the actor on screen, and yet also sounded almost exactly like him Morrison.
A helluva movie. Truly one of the greats.
Top Secret! is a gem of a movie and I will be watching it tomorrow in his honour.
Telling that, as of now, most comments mention a different film of his. Kilmer was great in so many things! I’ll just add Kiss Kiss Bang Bang to the pile, RIP to a great actor
Open the dictionary and under the word idiot, what do you see?
A picture of me?
No! The definition of the word idiot! Which you are!
(done from memory, so likely not 100% accurate)
Any day we lose a Batman is a bad day. RIP Iceman.
He was in a movie called Spartan. It's about the same plot as Resident Evil 4. Badass soldier rescues the president's daughter. Rarely see that movie mentioned but I thought it was very classic Val, just floating in that zone of crazy good acting and chewing up the scenery. Tombstone is probably my favorite of his movies but Spartan is a close second. I'm glad we all got to see this legend of an artist. May he rest in peace.
When the music’s over…
He'll always be my Huckleberry.
Personally believed he carried that movie. Without him it would have been different to me.
"Wyatt Earp is my friend."
That scene always gets me, it's one of the greatest in all cinema.
"hell I got lots of friends"
... "I don't."
God damn that scene gets me every time.
Another one to throw into the mix of mentions here. The first Val Kilmer movie that I actually always think of is The Island of Dr. Moreau. A bit offbeat I suppose but one of my absolute favourite childhood movies and I rented the VHS on more than one occasion. Think I might need to rewatch now.
Did you know the original director was fired, made himself up like one of the abominations and lived out in the jungle stalking the production for a while?
I love that movie.
Damn. Val was a great actor.
Man, I don't normally get choked up about celebrities but some of Val Kilmer's movies got me through a pretty dark time in the late 90s. I was 8 when Willow came out, we wore that VHS out. In 2000 I lived in the boonies taking care of an indoor broccoli growing operation in Colorado. The only thing I had was 20 or so books, a box of VHS tapes, and a 13" TV VCR combo. I must have watched Tombstone and The Saint 10000 times.
I am still friends with the guy who worked with me and anytime he asks me what happened to or where is so and so I 100% answer with "He ran off to live in the forest, in the nude."