The Lord of the Rings‘ Gandalf, Bilbo, Frodo, Bombo and Davo and co. are venturing into the Web3 metaverse, courtesy of Warner Bros. and Eluvio.

Actually, it’s the “Movieverse”, to be precise. And maybe Davo won’t be there.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, the production company behind the LOTR film series, has announced it’s releasing an NFT collection based around the first film in the Peter Jackson-directed trilogy – The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

And it’s the first step in what appears to be a broad plan to transition its entire DVD/Blu-ray collection into NFT content on a platform it’s calling the Movieverse.

“Home is behind the world ahead, and there are many paths to tread.” Guess Gandalf was right.

The first NFTs are an interactive-experience kinda deal, available for preview now at at web3.wb.com, and set for imminent purchase on October 21 (UTC).

The major Hollywood studio has teamed up with a utility-focused blockchain outfit called Eluvio, which focuses on bringing all kinds of content, including video, to the Web3/crypto world. Eluvio helped develop the NFTs and hosts them, along with all the content data they contain, on its Ethereum-compatible Content Fabric blockchain.

The NFTs themselves are essentially a wizard’s bag (nope, not sleeve) full of digital offerings – including a 4K copy of the film, behind-the-scenes footage and stills, and AR (augmented reality) collectibles inspired by the film.

The launch encompasses two NFT tiers – the “Premiere Mystery Edition”, which has 10,000 collectibles priced at US$30 each, and the “Premier Epic Edition” – 999 collectibles priced at US$100 each.

So, will WB’s Movieverse essentially be just a “token-gated Blu-ray menu”, as one Twitter user put it, or is it genuine cause for excitement about broader NFT and metaverse adoption by a major player in the entertainment world? Maybe a bit of column A and column B?

 

Further Hollywood NFT movements

This isn’t the first Hollywood film to have been released in an NFT format. For instance, last year legendary Welsh actor Anthony Hopkins starred in a tech thriller full-length feature called Zero Contact, released as a non-fungible token by the CurrencyWorks-built platform VUELE.

Kevin Smith, director of Clerks and Mallrats also has an upcoming feature film project called KillRoy Was Here, which he’s releasing as NFTs on the Cosmos-blockchain-based Secret Network.

Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction-based NFTs of “uncut scenes”, though, which he revealed late last year as an intended mint (also on the Secret Network) – those have essentially been shot down in a hail of Miramax-fired bullets.

As it turns out, the film studio had a few copyright issues with the Tarantino-led digital-asset project, promptly suing the director in November 2021.

According to a court filing this week, though (as reported in this recent NFT litigation roundup), Miramax and Tarantino have decided to settle the dispute and dismiss the lawsuit, releasing a joint statement:

“The parties have agreed to put this matter behind them and look forward to collaborating with each other on future projects, including possible NFTs”.

 

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