Mercury Songs Limited – the organization that owns the rights to the singer’s solo works – has reportedly filed for virtual reality and 3D intellectual property rights to Freddie Mercury’s name. That’s why speculation is now emerging about a hologram show with the late Queen frontman.
The Sun newspaper obtained the documents and reports that they cover “immersive 3D virtual, augmented and mixed reality experiences” for “virtual environments.” So it seems possible that Mercury could soon return to the stage as a digital avatar. It wouldn’t be the first time that the singer was pictured on stage after his death in 1991. In 2022, an optical illusion of the frontman was shown during Queen + Adam Lambert’s “Rhapsody Tour”.
Brian May’s thoughts on the potential hologram show
Although with the submission of “Mercury Songs Limited” it seems likely that Queen will soon be back on stage “with the original line-up”, guitarist Brian May has previously expressed criticism of this idea. Speaking on the Graham Norton Radio Show podcast, May said: “We were talking about and looking at holograms of Freddie, [aber] we love being live and dangerous. That’s our focus.” He added that the band doesn’t want to bring the show to life until they’re all dead.
He continued: “We have a bit of a thing with Freddie… I usually sing ‘Love of My Life’ and Freddie comes in and joins me at the end when we do our live shows. But it’s not a hologram, it’s just some kind of old-school technology that we kind of like.”