Singer George Michael, who passed away from natural causes at the age of 53 in December 2016, is expected to return to the stage as a hologram next year.Documents filed by the star's Nobby's Hobbies Holdings firm at Companies House and obtained by MailOnline show The 'Careless Whisper' singer’s estate made over $60,000 (£50,000) a day last year and added, "Activity at the group will broaden in the next one to three years to include live public performances."
Michael’s Wham! bandmate Andrew Ridgeley said last year he'd love to see the group back on stage in an Abba Voyage-style show, but admitted the prospect of using his late friend's likeness raised "ethical questions," reports aceshowbiz.com.
He told 'Newsnight': "My thinking would be, 'Fantastic!' To have Wham! at its pomp, playing live. Of course, there are ethical questions. And that decision would be a mutual decision between myself and (George Michael's) estate, should it ever come to it. And I can't speak for them, I don't know how they would feel about it. But I think it could be done, and I think it could be done exceptionally well. I'd pay to go and see it!"
The singer’s former-manager, David Austin, previously revealed the 'Freedom' singer had been in talks to use a hologram replica while he was still alive but the idea was scrapped because the technology wasn't deemed to be good enough.
Speaking at a screening of the documentary film 'Freedom Uncut' in London in June 2022, David responded when asked if a hologram tour was a possibility, "Never. A few years ago, way before all that started happening while George was with us, we were thinking about doing something at the Royal Albert Hall."
"So around the release of 'Listen Without Prejudice' [anniversary set] that we initially made this film for, we were going to do a live event, it was going to be orchestral or something like that, we were trying to work out how we could do this."
"We had an idea that in the middle of 'Fastlove', that bit where the rain comes down, we were going to see if we could do a hologram idea in the middle of the RAH which we thought would blow people away."
"We went around and had all these people sort of courting me – they did Tupac , they did this, they did that. I went to look at a load of them and they were s***. They were really, really poor. There were some people who were ahead of the game with it, some who weren't but it just didn't work."