Val Kilmer was forced to pull out of the Willow TV series due to serious concerns about his health.
The 62-year-old was originally meant to be in the reboot of the 1988 movie with the same title, which recently premiered on Disney Plus, but had no choice but to put his health first.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, the show's runner Jonathan Kasdan said that despite Kilmer's character, Madmartigan, not being in the show physically, his presence will still be immense.
"We really wanted Val to come [and] be in the show," he told the outlet. "And Val really wanted to come out and be in the show."
He continued: "I remember going to see Val right after this thing started to get some momentum, and I said, 'Listen, we're doing this. And the whole world wants Madmartigan back.' And he was like, 'Not as much as I do.'"
Kilmer has been struggling with his health ever since he was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2015. After undergoing chemotherapy and two tracheotomies, the actor is now free of the disease but speaks with the help of a voice box.
Regardless of his setbacks though, Kasdan said that the former Top Gun star was "up for anything" when he visited him.
"He embraced me when I left," Kasdan recalled. "He picked me up, and he said, 'See? I'm still super strong.' And I was like, 'Great.'"
However, things took a turn after the COVID-19 pandemic when production companies were forced to re-think their filming practises due to the health and safety risks.
"As COVID overtook the world, it became insurmountable," the showrunner explained. "We were prepping in the spring of the year that it was most happening. And Val reluctantly didn't feel he could come out.
"We had to figure out a way to preserve the story we wanted to tell with him about how his story was playing out."
Fortunately for Willow fans, Kasdan emphasized that it doesn't mean we'll never see Madmartigan on the show.
"We wanted to leave open the door to any possibility in the future and also honor the spirit of him," Kasdan says. "We've tried to do that and work with him in a way so that he is felt and heard, if not seen."
The first season of Willow is now available to watch on Disney Plus.
