Film director Adam Marcus has stirred controversy after making harsh comments about late Hollywood actor Val Kilmer, describing him as the worst person he had ever worked with, more than a year after Kilmer’s passing.
Marcus made the remarks in a series of posts shared on Threads on May 31, where he reflected on his experience directing Kilmer in the 2008 action thriller Conspiracy.
Alongside a behind-the-scenes photo from the set, Marcus used derogatory language while recalling their time working together.
“Here’s me and the Putz working it out on the set of Conspiracy. So yeah, that happened,” he wrote, according to Entertainment Weekly.
In Conspiracy, Kilmer played William “Spooky” MacPherson, a disabled Iraq War veteran who becomes entangled in a corporate conspiracy after travelling to Arizona in search of a missing friend.
Anticipating backlash over speaking negatively about the dead, Marcus defended his comments and insisted he stood by his experience.
“And to any of you rolling your eyes because of the whole ‘don’t speak ill of the dead’ — f— that,” he wrote. “If this guy did one-tenth of what he did on my set today, he would have been cancelled in a blink.”
He further described Kilmer as the worst person he had ever encountered in his career. The posts were later deleted following public backlash.
Val Kilmer, known for iconic roles in Top Gun, Tombstone, and Batman Forever, died on April 1, 2025, at the age of 65 from pneumonia.
