20 of the most shameless cultural franchises

From The Telegraph:

Cat_1513027c If the actor dies, the singer quits or the writer can't work fast enough, there is no reason to stop churning out culture. Here are 20 triumphs of money — or stubborn longevity — over art.

1) Robert Ludlum
The prolific thriller author behind the Bourne trilogy of novels didn't let the small matter of dying put an end to his career. More than a dozen books – written for the most part by jobbing hacks – have been published under his name since he passed away in 2001. And the gravy train doesn't look like stopping any time soon. ''People expect something from a Robert Ludlum book, and if we can publish Ludlum books for the next 50 years and satisfy readers, we will,'' the executor of his state told the New York Times.

2) Pussycat Dolls
This chart-topping US girl band does not have members, it has “representatives”. Under the guiding hand of Svengali Robin Antin, the group has morphed from burlesque troupe to Las Vegas stage act to reality television fodder, in the process shedding all of its original performers. The comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, in character as the offensive Kazakh television presenter Borat, introduced them at the 2005 MTV Europe awards as “international singing prostitutes”. An outrageous slur on their sexual morals, but arguably a fair précis of the financial motivations behind the project.

More here.