As there is no more room in celebrity hell, the celebrity dead continue to walk the earth in hologram form—a resurrection made possible by recent, Tupac.0-heralded advancements in technology and repressing shame. To the shimmering specters of the suddenly profitable again Shakur and Freddie Mercury you can now add Marilyn Monroe, whom The Hollywood Reporter says will be dragged back onto the mortal coil she selfishly sought escape from and once more strung up like a poseable puppet for Virtual Marilyn Live, a concert that will find her singing and interacting with boringly non-hologram music stars. The show doesn't yet have a venue or date (though it's expected to happen before the end of the year), but already the company behind it is trumpeting Marilyn's return as " performer, spokesperson, cultural pundit, and computer avatar," because she's dead, so what is she going to do about it? As in Marilyn's actual flesh-life, pretty much nothing, so put on your pretty holo-dress and make holo-kissy faces, holo-toots.
Although, THR does note that the project could herald lawsuits to come from estates who don't necessarily want to see their late relatives dredged up as "computer avatars," whatever that means. Of course, any fight would also require a lot of complicated legal bickering: Many entertainment lawyers are already arguing over how they can possibly interpret old publicity rights deals to address holograms, with one of them even warning current celebrities, "If you want to exclude holograms, you should explicitly exclude them in contracts." But of course, that advice only helps the famous people who are alive right now, and who should already be contacting their managers and asking that they please not be transformed into shucking-and-jiving corpses someday, thanks.
Elsewhere the dead are increasingly becoming fair game, as THR imagines the technology being used for everything from forcing Marlon Brando and Jimmy Stewart to perform on stage to dead athletes reenacting their most famous sporting events. They also add, "The adult entertainment industry, always quick to adopt new technology, also could make interesting use of holograms"—something that, much like the Virtual Marilyn show, presages a brand new dawn of terrified boners. Anyway, should Marilyn's concert actually go off without much resistance, begin compiling your wish list of other dead people you'd like to see converted into holograms. Then eat that list and choke on it so we can turn you into a hologram and make some money already.