NEW YORK (AP) — Pophouse Entertainment has acquired Tina Turner’s identify, image and likeness rights in addition to the bulk share of her music catalog rights from music firm BMG, it introduced Thursday.
The Swedish firm, co-founded by ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus, is understood for his or her digital avatars and immersive experiences.
Pophouse CEO Jessica Koravos wouldn’t disclose the deal’s monetary particulars or describe the corporate’s plans for the Turner acquisition however advised The Associated Press “that one of the reasons that we were so interested in Tina is because she has such an incredible visual presence and such an incredible stage energy. And so, we’re very much looking at projects that can portray that and try to recreate that to some degree.”
“What we want to do is really help to consolidate her legacy,” she added. “I think that Tina Turner is up there, or is going to be up there, with the Elvises and the Marilyn Monroes of the world.”
Koravos wouldn’t verify if a digital avatar is on the way in which. She did say Pophouse will announce plans within the subsequent six months.
Turner, often called the “Queen of Rock ’n’ Roll” for her chart-topping hits equivalent to “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” “The Best” and “Proud Mary,” died in 2023 at 83. Across her multidecade profession, Turner gained 12 Grammy Awards — together with a Lifetime Achievement Award — was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1991 and 2021, was honored on the Kennedy Center in 2005 and sold over 150 million data worldwide.
Conversations for the Pophouse deal started after her demise. Koravos advised the AP that BMG nonetheless holds a share of her catalog. She mentioned Turner’s property was not concerned “as a counterparty but certainly involved and in the sense of informed and participating in the conversations.”
“Tina Turner’s voice and spirit shaped modern music and popular culture,” Alistair Norbury, president of BMG U.Okay., Continental Europe and APAC, wrote in a press release. “Our responsibility, alongside Pophouse and the Estate, is to ensure her work continues to resonate with audiences around the world, while remaining true to the strength, independence and originality that defined her career.”
One of many musical investments
Pophouse has been making investments outdoors of Sweden as of late. In 2024, onerous rock quartet Kiss sold their catalog, model identify and mental property to Pophouse in a deal estimated to be over $300 million. Previously, the band partnered with Pophouse to develop digitized avatars of themselves, which they revealed onstage on the final night of their 2023 farewell tour.
The cutting-edge know-how was created by George Lucas’ special-effects firm, Industrial Light & Magic, in partnership with Pophouse. The similar corporations teamed up for the “ABBA Voyage” show in London, the place followers might attend a full live performance by the Swedish band of their heyday, as carried out by their very own digital avatars.
Also in 2024, Cyndi Lauper entered a partnership with Pophouse, which included the sale of the bulk share of her music.
“Most suits, when you tell them an idea, their eyes glaze over, they just want your greatest hits,” Lauper told the AP at Pophouse’s Stockholm headquarters on the time. “But these guys are a multimedia company, they’re not looking to just buy my catalog, they want to make something new.”
“I think what interests artists, and the estates of artists in some cases, is that there aren’t very many people who are talking to them about what they want to achieve, creatively, around their body of work,” Koravos says. “So I think that is interesting to people, it’s interesting to artists, who have got creative projects in their heads that they would like some support realizing. And those are the people we’re interested in talking to.”
“We’re not trying to be a major (label),” she provides. “It’s not a volume game for us. We want to acquire 10 or 12 really unique properties that have even more unique projects attached to them.”
