Has your favorite musician died? Stick around long enough and he or she will surely make an appearance again via hologram. At the rate things are going, and for the right "appearance" fee of course, you may eventually invite your own hologram Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famer to perform at your wedding or other private event.

The "virtual performance" business kicked off in April when Dr. Dre debuted a hologram of Tupac Shakur on-stage at Coachella. As Entertainment Weekly notes, that was followed by plans to resurrect Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes for live shows and the re-creation of Elvis for a concert series.

It also got the Jackson family talking about whether they should bring Michael back on the road — after all, he's already on the comeback trail with Pepsi this summer as part of its (ironically) "Live For Now" marketing campaign.Continue reading...

Remember YouTube's promise to deliver more than 100 original channels of exclusive programming with brands and celebrity partners in 2012? In the wake of its recent pitch to advertisers, the Google-owned video giant is making good on that promise.

Two of those exclusive channels, launching July 2nd, are being produced by Electus. That's the multimedia branded entertainment studio founded by Ben Silverman, former head of programming for NBC, with the backing of Barry Diller's IAC.Continue reading...

“Star Wars” Day was last week. (“May the fourth be with you” and all that). But diehard fans of the films are obviously ready to celebrate it at anytime and anywhere. So there was a jolt of excitement when word came out that the owner of the franchise, LucasFilm, had filed for a new trademark, “Star Wars 1313,” according to NeoSeeker.com.

The filing suggests that LucasFilm will be using the new trademark for a new Star Wars game, though others had originally thought it might be a television show.

The trademark would be used for “interactive entertainment software and accompanying instruction manuals sold as a unit, namely, computer game software and manuals sold as a unit, video game software and manuals sold as a unit; video game software, computer game software, and pre-recorded compact discs and DVDs featuring games, films, animation, music, computer game software, and video game software; downloadable video game software and downloadable computer game software; computer game software for use on mobile and cellular phones.”Continue reading...

Add another brand to the roster suiting up for the NFL Draft tonight: Disney Pixar, which released this promo for its upcoming animated feature, Brave, with appropriate tongue-in-cheek references. The movie is scheduled for release on June 22.

The Hunger Games movie opening is expected to break all Hollywood records, even eclipsing the now benign-seeming franchises of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Twilight. The first of four planned movies is projected to rake in more than $100 million at the box office this upcoming weekend, with more than $1 million worth of tickets already pre-sold.

The trilogy, written by bestselling author Suzanne Collins, has 24 million copies in print in the U.S. and a built-in fan base that Lionsgate Entertainment has leveraged with unprecedented acumen.

They started traditionally with print ads in newspapers, 50+ magazine cover stories, 3,000 billboard and bus shelter displays, and 80,000 distributed posters. And then came the digital build, creating a series of “little online brushfires to create a box office inferno,” as New York Times reporter Brooks Barnes comments in the video that accompanies his must-read story.

Starting a year ago, the Lionsgate marketing team, led by CMO Tim Palen, leveraged social media to the hilt, building anticipation and participation via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, iPhone games and the promise of live Yahoo streaming at the premiere.Continue reading...

As part of its deal to acquire NBCUniversal, Comcast agreed to launch more minority-owned networks by 2014 — and it's doing just that. From a music and pop culture hub called Revolt from Sean "Diddy" Combs, to a startup backed by Magic Johnson, it's a mixed bag that helps America's biggest cable operator appease the feds — but will it really do much for diversity — or TV viewers?Continue reading...

Target's 30-second spot that debuted during the Grammy Awards ceremony on Sunday night touts its enhanced version of Adele's Grammy-sweeping 21 album — and a talented 11-year-old named Denise Bestman belting out her hit tune, "Rolling in the Deep."

The young New Yorker's connection to Adele dates back to last April when, as a member of at Staten Island's famed PS22 Chorus, she sang the tune in a YouTube video that was tweeted by the British singer. Bestman, now a sixth grader and PS22 alum, was one of 64 students from PS22 who performed during the Oscars telecast last February.

Watch her PS22 breakout performance that caught Target and Adele's attention below.Continue reading...

The annual indie-film extravaganza known as the Sundance Film Festival got underway Thursday night in Park City, Utah, and the New York Times noticed something there that had been missing at recent fests: many corporate sponsors.

Eight brands are officially sponsoring this year's festival, which launched as an offshoot of Robert Redford's Sundance Institute in 1978: Adobe, GE, Sprint, Yahoo!, Bertolli, Grey Goose, Time Warner, and Hilton. Last year, the festival had two — Honda and Trident — and neither of them are back.Continue reading...