Would The Son Of The Saint have been a better than Kilmer.

[stuart.uk]

I remember thinking after watching the Bond movie A View To A Kill and thinking Roger Moore should now give up the role, as he was a bit long in the tooth, but still in his 50s I felt he could play The Saint Simon Templar in a one of feature film. My own idea was a sequel to his Saint tv movie Vendetta For The Saint, where Templar brings Mafia boss Ian Hendrey to justice with the villain threatening him with One Day Templar, that's a promise and The Saint replying I can wait Deno, how about you

That didn't happen, but not long after Roger appeared on The Wogan show to announce he was to play The Saint again in
The Son Of The Saint type story where Templar discovers he has an illegitimet son. Again that didn't happen either.

Roger confirmed in his biography he was going to play Simon Templar and hand over the reins to a young actor like Ralph Fiennes or Hugh Grant, who would be cast as his son. However, it was a troubled production and the idea of The Son Of The Saint was scrapped. Roger owned half the rights to The Saint books and because he was involved in the early production, he was paid a salary for the Val Kilmer The Saint. His voice also did a brief cameo in the film.

The film died and Kilmer confided in Moore that they screwed it up. My own view is that Val Kilmer is a great actor, but gives the impression of being a method actor like Brando, whereas Saint's like Moore, Louis Hayword and George Sanders were smooth and laid back, in much the same way Cary Grant was in North By Northwest and Charade
The one piece of casting I liked in the film was Alun Armstrong (Braveheart and New Tricks) as Inspector Claude Teal

[klondike]

The film died and Kilmer confided in Moore that they screwed it up.

Respectfully, I disagree with Val and, evidently, most of the world's film critics & movie-goers.
I liked The Saint . . I might even say that I like it quite a bit!
I have read some of the Charteris novels, and watched the early films with Sanders, and semi-regularly tuned-in on Moore as Simon Templar on TV, and have appreciated each presentation for its own merits.
And among the actors portraying the Saint, I think Kilmer was the best fit.