It's only a matter of time before Hollywood jumps into the NFT game. Sure there have been little rumbles here and there, like when Quentin Tarantino offered up his original Pulp Fiction screenplay as an NFT. But so far, we haven't seen a native web3 NFT project come to fruition. The question is, who will build it first: Big studio player or upstart indie filmmaker?
Ben Mezrich is the author of a number of culture defining books. Many of which have been turned into Hollywood movies. He is the man behind The Social Network and Bringing Down the House. And now he is dabbling in the NFT space, with an earnest mission to make an NFT movie that is deeply connected to the NFT community. It's the meta project of the NFT metaverse.
Phase one of the Ben Mezrich NFT Project just dropped. With a set of tokens based around rocket illustrations that touch on his history of books. The art is well-done and the creator seems invested in the space. But it's the roadmap that makes this one a project to watch.
Owners of all three of the token drops will be eligible to claim a "Screenplay Token." According to the roadmap, 50% of the screenplay will "belong" to the community. So in essence, claiming the three tokens makes you a shareholder in the future film project. Mezrich says he aims to write the screenplay in the next six months, using research and discussions with the community to inform and flesh out the story. While creative control will fall to Mezrich as the screenwriter, there will be opportunities for the community to suggest storylines and highlight important players in the NFT space.
Speaking on various podcasts, Mezrich referred to The Social Network when speaking about how he sees the NFT movie coming to life. The Social Network put a Shakespearean drama around the key players in the rise of Facebook. While there was some fictionalizing going on for drama's sake, the characters were all based on real people. Mezrich sees the same thing happening here. The story will follow key NFT creators as the space builds and grows. He is still looking for the central drama and narrative thread to develop the story around, but the project is underway.
It's a novel approach to both filmmaking and NFTs. It essentially fuses the two together to create a work of art that could only exist because of both of them. It's similar to the Bored Apes spin off book project, Jenkins the Valet, but this project will be the "based on a real story" version of an NFT tale.
Mezrich has the track record, Hollywood connections and existing community to give this project legs. While nothing is a sure deal in Hollywood or the NFT space, this project feels as about a sure of a bet as there has been so far. People scoffed when the idea of a movie about Facebook was floated around, but then the film itself ended up turning into its own entity, garnering awards and Oscar buzz as a piece of art.
With Mezrich's roadmap, perhaps one day we will see a community of NFT holders lining up on the red carpet come Oscar night. With the press asking "who dressed your PFP?"
Stranger things have happened.