Hollywood Web3 trends and opportunities for Gabriel Mason
Gabriel Mason notes...
Check out: WB Movieverse - where Warner Bros. sell their feature film NFTs.
Create Protocol is the Indian/Dubai-based company that wants to sell its NFT manufacturing console to Hollywood. Here is their slide deck for
Videos
NFT Entertainment Revolution: Warner Bros, Orange Comet, CyberBrokers and NFT Now at NFT Paris, Decrypt, Mar 16, 2023
How NFTs Can Move Beyond Arts and Entertainment, Wall Street Journal.
Market Reports
Beyond Bored Apes, NFTs Will Revolutionize Customer Engagement, Bain & Co. September 13, 2022
Reference Articles
Welcome to SCENE: Where Tech Meets Fashion, Art, and Entertainment, Decrypt, Aug 16, 2023
THE BENEFITS OF THE NFT: EXPLORING NEW AVENUES FOR ENTERTAINMENT PROFESSIONALS—Founders Legal, January 31, 2023
Opinion: NFTs Are the Ultimate Disruptor of Hollywood's Entertainment Status Quo, — Coindesk —April 4, 2023, at 4:45 a.m. PDT
Hollywood Meets Art: How NFTs Are Revolutionizing the Entertainment Industry — Rollingstone, May 17, 2023
NFT ACTIVITY IN THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY: SUMMER 2022 UPDATE, Variety, JULY 27, 2022 6:00AM PT
Can NFTs Change Hollywood And Entertainment —Forbes, Mar 26, 2022
NFTs in Motion: A New Era For The Entertainment Industry, Binance Blog, 2022-10-13
List of celebrities that hold NFTs and Crypto 2023, — Cryptopolitan, February 15, 2023
List of Celebrity NFTs to Watch Out in 2023— OCTOBER 21, 2022
What is NFT in the Entertainment Industry? Trends and More!, — January 26, 2023
Ticketmaster Tests NFT-Enabled Pre-Sales With Avenged Sevenfold Tour, Billoard, 03/27/2023
How NFTs are changing the entertainment industry, Business Insider, Apr 26, 2022, 8:06 AM PDT
Lord of the NFTs: Get your Collectors Edition here.
Film studio Warner Bros. is betting movie NFTs become the next "collectors edition" DVDs that provide cinephiles a more intimate sense of ownership. Last Fall, with Web3/blockchain partner Eluvio, WB offered fans Ethereum-compatible 'Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring' NFTs. The NFTS can be bought and sold in the "WB Movieverse," a marketplace that now includes ‘Flash’ and ‘Superman’ and other titles from the studio. Purchasers of the NFTs can hold them in their MetaMask or Eluvio crypto wallet.
WB and Eluvio minted 999 copies of the Epic Edition, priced at $100 each, and 10,000 of the Mystery Edition for $30. The NFTs effectively function as an all-in-one digital experience. Both allow buyers to watch the extended version of the film (which clocks in at 3 hours and 48 minutes) in 4K UHD, with access to more than eight hours of special features, hundreds of images, and hidden AR collectibles. The Epic Edition includes extra image galleries and navigation menus for three film locations—The Shire, Rivendell, and Mines of Moria—along with location-specific key art.
With the "Lord of the Rings" release, the core digital assets of the experience, along with derivative NFTs, are all on the blockchain, not just the token (NFT) itself. This setup allows smart contracts to dynamically update content and new experiences on an owner's NFT over time.
Several other studios have jumped into the NFT game. Lionsgate has released NFTs for its horror franchise "Saw," Paramount released "Star Trek" NFTs, AMC launched "Walking Dead" NFTs earlier this year, and Netflix has gotten some backlash for its "Stranger Things" NFTs. On the TV front, The creators of "Rick and Morty" have partnered with FOX Network to launch an NFT collection for a new animated series called "Krapopolis" with many unique content and privileges.
DVD and CD collectibles comeback on steroids!
The music, film, and TV streaming companies born out of Web2 started the decentralization movement by serving this content to listeners and viewers on-demand, making it easier for viewers and reducing the need for cable services other than sports and breaking news. Unfortunately for Hollywood, online services beginning with iTunes and later with Spotify and Netflix and all their imitators came online, also signaled the end of selling discs of all forms. As a result, music sales plummeted, and the film industry could only produce horror films, comedies, and big-budget special effects films that could make money at the box office; gone were the less popular genres that depended on DVD sales and rentals.
Savvy entertainment insiders have foreseen the possibilities of using the multimedia and auto-updatable blockchain-based NFT format to bring back product lines lost when all content went online—the CD and DVD collectibles. The rebirth of these old yet proven revenue streams under the robust and fully digital NFT format could help fund a Renaissance in new, more niche audience-focused entertainment and provide advertisers a whole new way to impress committed fans.
The most significant economic change from Web3 will come from the inevitable tokenization of all entertainment assets onto NFTs. "This is the last mile of direct-to-consumer," observes Chris Jacquemin, head of digital strategy at powerhouse talent agency WME. "The data and relationships artists and sellers have with the consumer are very different in a blockchain environment." To date, Hollywood has been doing some cool stuff with NFTs to bolster marketing and create new sources of revenue. The Lord of the Rings NFT experiment is an excellent gamble. But creators still need to take full advantage of the new blockchain model.
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