News Kevin Smith's New Horror Movie Will Be Released as an NFT

[JD]

In what I believe will be a first for Hollywood, Kevin Smith has announced that his next movie, the horror anthology Killroy Was Here, will be released as an NFT. So this means there is a decent chance that only one person in the entire world will get to see.
This could potentially be a huge game changing precedent for how movies are being released. Could we potentially looking at a future where we are seeing other movies from high profile directors or actors released as an NFT?
I doubt we'll ever see big blockbusters like the Star Wars, or Marvel movies being released this way, but if Killroy is a success, and NFT's continue to be a thing, I could see other directors or actors deciding to go this route for their mid or small scale movies.

 

[The Realist]

I saw a news story recently about a comics artist making millions releasing stuff as NFTs. I sez to myself, "Self, WTF is an NFT?" I Googled, I read about two paragraphs of impenetrable technobabble, and I decided at that point I knew enough about fucking NFTs to last me the rest of my life.

 

[David cgc]

Yeah, that’s pretty horrifying, all right.

There’s certainly precedent for things that are typically considered “mass” media being released in extremely limited amounts. The Wu-Tang Clan album Martin Shkreli purchased, or the Cremaster Cycle art-film series which only had twenty copies made, aside from an excerpt released widely that I was subjected to in an Art Survey class in college, which allows me to confidently state that, despite only seeing less than a tenth of it, there were twenty too many copies made.

I have strong, strong objections to NFT’s both in concept and practice, and I’m confident that if there’s any kind of justice, or even a vague relation of cause and effect, in this world, NFT’s will be little more than an extremely expensive and predatory fad. Though they are helpful in letting me find out what people (like, apparently, Kevin Smith) are utterly lacking in any sense and would be an easy target for elaborate confidence games if I ever find my morality utterly shattered and turn to evil to make my living.

 

[FreezeC77]

Didn't JK Rowling do something sort of similar in a Harry Potter short story that was auctioned off to one person?

This is basically just Kevin Smith selling the rights to his movie off to someone. The more 'interesting' aspect to me would be if he was selling it in PIECES of NFT's. So someone would gain forever control of 30 second segments of a movie or something.

In order to see the entire movie you need everyone to actually release it or lease it out.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

As I understand NFTs, the point is that they can not be copied. I'm not sure whether it's possible to convert an NFT into a different video format, it kind of has to be. Otherwise, having the rights to the movie with the movie would be pointless, as releasing it wouldn't actually be possible. And Smith specifically said it would be up to the buyer whether to release it or not, so there's that.

This also feels like quite a shift for Smith. Usually he is very concerned with his fans having access to his work. I'm highly sceptical of this move.

 

[David cgc]

As I understand NFTs, the point is that they can not be copied. I'm not sure whether it's possible to convert an NFT into a different video format, it kind of has to be. Otherwise, having the rights to the movie with the movie would be pointless, as releasing it wouldn't actually be possible. And Smith specifically said it would be up to the buyer whether to release it or not, so there's that.

The actual "token" in "non-fungible token" doesn't contain that much data. I'm not sure what the maximum size is, but it's definitely less than a master-quality copy of an entire movie. It's usually something like a web URL pointing at an image or other file (what happens if the website holding your million-dollar investment goes down or changes their set-up so the URL doesn't work anymore? Like I said, dumb fad, can't last). An NFT is basically a certificate of authenticity for a separate digital item. The thing is, the very nature of a digital item means it can be perfectly duplicated infinitely. Anyone who has access to the movie could copy it and redistribute it ("could" in the technical sense, not in the legal sense) just as easily as they could any other video file, they just can't duplicate the NFT, which doesn't matter because only rich weirdos consider the benefit of owning something to be having exclusive bragging rights, rather than physical custody of or access to the actual piece of art.

The NFT aspect of this seems to be a gimmick for a bizarre rights-transfer. From Smith's description, he's essentially selling the copyright of the film outright to whoever holds the NFT, which is very unusual. Many creators are downright covetous of their intellectual property, and the ones who aren't usually are approaching it from a perspective where letting someone else exploit the copyright on their work in ways they oppose philosophically would be entirely unacceptable.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

Thanks for the technical education. Now, as for why Kev would sell the copyright of the film, he likened it to how he sold Clerks to Miramax back in the day. Considering he's been sitting on the movie in question for a while now (filming was done in October 2018), it might be a case that none of the usual distributors and/or streaming platforms wanted it. His forays into horror have been quite controversial, Red State aside, so he might have been afraid of sitting on a dud. In that case, he might very well just be hijacking the current fad in order to get some of the financing back.

 

[JD]

That could make sense.
Definitely not a fan of this whole NFT thing though, and I'm hoping it doesn't become a regular distribution method for movies.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

They’re trying to make digital art work more like paintings have worked for centuries. Creating artificial scarcity.

 

[kirk55555]

The NFT thing is pretty scummy, and Smith was being such an ass about it online that I'm pretty turned off from his work now. I'm not a big fan of his later era films anyway (anything after Red State is pretty crappy in my opinion, and "coincidentally" that consistent decline in quality started after he got really into pot) but I still liked him as a "personality", watched his Fatman Beyond stuff, etc. But he seems like a real asshole over this stuff, not even pretending that he gives a shit about the problems with NFTs or even listening to the people who were trying to politely talk about it, and its really shined an unplesant light on him, for me at least.

I'll always love his classic films (minus Chasing Amy, I never liked that film very much), but I'm kind of just done with him as a content creator/personality.

 

[Kai "the spy"]

Just thought to share this here, Kev talked a bit about the NFT thing on the latest Fatman Beyond and adressed environmental issues as well as availability to fans:

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Another thing I thought of, kind of to supplement my previous musings on Kev's motives, is that as an independent film, most of the cast and crew probably wasn't paid, but would get a percentage of the profits. So, if Kev wasn't able to sell the movie to a proper distributor (at least not without a big PR stunt like, you know, auctioning it off as a NFT), quite a few people Kev worked with on the movie - and presumably would like to work with again - wouldn't see any money for it. So, this way, Kev would be able to pay those people based on how much the NFT sells for.

 

[thribs]

I bought one of those Undertaker NFTs over Wrestlemania weekend. I thought I was buying a specific moment but I think we all got the same clip.
Maybe they will be valuable one day

 

[JD]

Wouldn't them all being the same clip kind of defeat the purpose of it being an NFT?

 

[thribs]

You had only 15 minutes to get one and so there’s is only a certain amount available. 630 for mine.

 

[kirk55555]

Just thought to share this here, Kev talked a bit about the NFT thing on the latest Fatman Beyond and adressed environmental issues as well as availability to fans:

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Another thing I thought of, kind of to supplement my previous musings on Kev's motives, is that as an independent film, most of the cast and crew probably wasn't paid, but would get a percentage of the profits. So, if Kev wasn't able to sell the movie to a proper distributor (at least not without a big PR stunt like, you know, auctioning it off as a NFT), quite a few people Kev worked with on the movie - and presumably would like to work with again - wouldn't see any money for it. So, this way, Kev would be able to pay those people based on how much the NFT sells for.

For a bit after he announced it I thought it was funny that a vegan was willing to help to destroy the environment with a stupid NFT, but then I remembered that he didn't go vegan for environmental reasons, he did it for health reasons, so it makes sense he doesn't give a shit. Its sad how pathetic he's become, if that shitty movie wasn't going to bring in enough money for the people making it, and they apparently knew this, they shouldn't have fucking made it.

Say what you want about Smith as a producer/film maker, he's usually smart enough to make films at a low enough budget that even just getting middling DVD sales and (nowadays) a streaming deal is enough to make a profit, at least eventually. If that wasn't going to work for the upcoming movie, it means they really fucked up, but doesn't justify the NFT thing.

Also, he's apparently doing more Jay & Silent Bob crypto stuff, so really just fuck him. He's always been something of a grifter, which is generally fine since it usually just cost him a bit of his dignity as he shilled stuff, crypto goes beyond that and its just a shitty thing to do.

 

[JD]

You had only 15 minutes to get one and so there’s is only a certain amount available. 630 for mine.

OK, that makes sense then.

 

[publiusr]

Shades of the “art” of a paper eaten by a shredder.

An NFT buyer as a snuff film victim who’s death is shown to the next sucker would be apt...something out of Hostel or V/H/S....shades of a Robert Bloch character shown his own death in ancient script...

Me? I want Ralph Nader as FCC chief to force all streaming programs on cable after two years