Look out Hollywood! A new ‘crypto-wave’ of filmmaking will ‘turn the industry on its head’ | City & Business | Finance

The advent of NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, has allowed for a revolutionary new way of funding and distributing feature films. Blockchain-based technology promises to make the everyday consumer a film financier, with the option to buy a profit share in a film through “pre-sale NFTs”. One company that is doing this already is Moviecoin.com, a crypto-start-up that have part-financed a pugilism biopic called Prizefighter, starring Russell Crowe, Ray Winstone and written by Matt Hookings.

The lead developer of Moviecoin, James spoke to Express.co.uk and said: “For us, the importance of the NFT sales is really to show that power can be returned to the artists and subsequently moved away from multiple intermediaries in a supply chain.

“By tokenising movie pre-production and selling NFTs representative of future rights we truly believe the whole industry will be turned on its head or at the least forced to give people a better deal.

“We see this starting with the smaller budget films and then catching on among the mid to high budget films.

“That said, we have already had enquiries from some of the most well-known directors in the world so nothing will surprise us!”

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One film on the Moviecoin.com platform that has set a goal to be 100 percent fully financed through pre-sale NFTs is ‘Oui Cannes‘ directed by Mark O’Connor, whose film Cardboard Gangsters won an IFTA in 2018.

Pre-sale NFTs for ‘Oui Cannes’ can be viewed on the Opensea platform.

Mark also spoke to Express.co.uk and said: “NFT presales for film won’t only change the model of financing it will change the way films are made and the types of films that get made.”

O’Connor forecasts that the new technology will ultimately democratise the filmmaking process and allow more independent productions to get produced, distributed and exhibited worldwide, or in the metaverse.

An NFT is a digital certificate, stored forever on the blockchain, that states the owner of a piece of artwork, film prop, piece of memorabilia, and the list goes on.

NFTs enable future payment structures to be coded into their ‘smart contracts’.

In the case of NFTs purchased on the Moviecoin.com platform, the ability to receive a profit share of the film years after it has been released.

The combination of profit share and the possibility of the NFT increasing in value over time have placed these cryptocurrency inventions in high demand.

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Film producer Rick Dugdale has spoken to Express.co.uk about how NFTs promise to give film fans the ability to own official digital content associated with new feature films or famous movies from the past.

The film producer, and director of 2021’s Zero Contact starring Anthony Hopkins, spoke to Express.co.uk and said: “Hollywood should look at film NFTS as a new revenue stream.”

Zero Contact was launched on the Vuele NFT movie platform, which calls itself the “premier platform for watching and collecting exclusive, limited edition feature-length films, and collector NFT content”.

Dugdale added: “We want to get mass adoption of people buying NFTs of their favourite films.

“We made NFTs of Zero Contact that allowed those who purchased them first exclusive access to the movie.

“NFTs of motion pictures have a collectability factor and allow owners to become part of an exclusive community of people who own part of a film.

“They also have a secondary sale value.”

The producer and director added that “it took Hollywood a long time to see the potential and take advantage of NFTs, and a year ago big studios thought this new business model was a threat, but now they are starting to take interest”.