Hollywood could finance movies using crypto, NFTs – James Mackie and Matt Hookings
(Kitco News) – In the future, movies may be financed through cryptocurrencies and NFTs, which could democratize the movie production process, according to James Mackie, Team Lead at Moviecoin.com, and Matt Hookings, an actor and producer, and founder of Camelot Films.
“Underlying the NFT, we have this technology that allows us to monetize and provide a profit share, or it’s baked into a smart contract, and if someone sells that NFT because they no longer want the profit share, they can,” Mackie said. “It was a perfect fit for what we needed [for movie funding].”
He added that financing films in this way enables more decentralized and audience-based decisions about the production process.
“When you’re a fully successful DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization, you can let voters choose the next lead in the movie, or which theaters it’s shown in,” he explained. “You can give the rights to the entire curation of the film to the crowds.”
Mackie and Hooking spoke to David Lin, anchor and producer at Kitco News, at the AIBC Summit in Malta.
The Prizefighter movie
Mackie used NFTs and crypto to finance Prize fighter, an Amazon Prime film starring Hookings as Jem Belcher, a 19th-century English boxer. The film also stars Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe.
Hookings, who also wrote and produced Prize fightersaid that the NFT financing model has paved the way for other films to raise capital in this way.
“With Prize fighterwe did [NFT funding] on a small scale, it was a small part of the financing,” he stated. “But because of the nature of it, being an Amazon movie, and because we had Russell Crowe and a lot of famous cast members, I think it tickled the idea of this is where the studios can go.”
Hookings added that he had met with a producer who was looking to “fund his next film entirely with NFTs.”
Remakes and sequels
The traditional financing model for movie studios has made them prefer to make remakes and sequels, rather than risk capital on new and unproven ideas, Mackie said.
“If you have a completely unknown cast, apart from the odd exception, that film will not sell in theaters,” he said. “You can even look at the awards that are attached to certain actors. . . . For me, it ruins everything a little bit. I don’t often see films that I’m just engrossed in anymore.”
He suggested that NFTs can change that, allowing for more creative and original content in films.
“[When] you let the public fund the movies, then it’s all up to the producer’s creative discretion as to what they make and what they show,” he said.
To find out how social media has changed film content, watch the video above.
Follow David Lin on Twitter: @davidlin_TV
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