Details of the company's hard times surfaced online late Tuesday (September 11) night.
Less than a year after going public, the digital production company responsible for Coachella's Tupac hologram has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and agreed to sell the core of its business to a private investment firm for $15 million. Digital Domain Media Group Inc., founded by director James Cameron, is best known for its work on Cameron's "Titanic" and has produced visual effects for more than 90 movies, including "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" and the "Transformers" series. The company was "running out of cash," Chief Restructuring Officer Michael Katzenstein said in court filings, and had violated cash and debt requirements set forth by its lenders. It tried to find additional outside sources of capital, but wasn't able get enough to restructure its debt and pay its operating expenses, he said. (My Desert)
Earlier this summmer, plans emerged which suggested the company would digitally bring late music icon Elvis Presley back to life as a hologram.
On Wednesday, Digital Domain Media Group and Elvis Presley Enterprises said they had begun work on "a series of digital Elvis Presley likenesses for shows and multi-platform entertainment projects." Digital Domain's chief creative officer, Ed Ulbrich, said "formal conversations" between the two companies began after Tupac's high-profile return to the stage at Coachella in mid-April. The visual effects house began working on the project earlier this week, he said, but declined to provide more details, including when the reincarnated Elvis might be ready to return to the stage, and whether he'll play Vegas. (Wall Street Journal)
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