What's next? Elvis is back in the building

What’s next? Elvis is back in the building

Ed Ulbrich, chief creative officer of Digital Domain, the company that created Virtual 2Pac says his company’s next project is fit for a king.

“Right now we’re focusing on Elvis,” he says. “We’re certainly having other conversations, but Elvis Presley is next up for us.”

Ulbrich is tightlipped when it comes to revealing what those other conversations are. When asked if he had his choice of any musician he’d want to bring back to the stage, he says, “I would love to be able to answer that question for you, but I’ve already done it. Whomever I would love, we’ve already contacted and we’ve already done and we’re already there. So I can’t really talk about that.”

Does Ulbrich think that dead stars are the key to the future of live music?

“I can’t see this as the future of concerts where it’s replacing the idea of live entertainment, live music,” he says. “I do think that we’re on the cusp of a new form of entertainment that is substantial, and it can enhance a concert going experience.”

As for the moral implications, Ulbrich says he has no qualms about what his company is doing.
“There is no evil exploitative capitalistic plot behind this thing,” he says, “albeit, the benefit of it happening was that it sold a heck of a lot of records and downloads for Tupac and his estate. I think the fact that it was done with the blessing of the family, of his mother, also speaks to that. So we look as it as a tribute. We weren’t asking him to get up there and sell soft drinks and juice pops.”

So what can Ulbrich divulge about the Elvis project?

“Let’s put it this way,” he says, making sure to temper his words, “what we’re planning in tribute to The King needs to be nothing less than spectacular and epic, so we are creating and designing something quite enormous and grand.”