Hollywood executive producer Niels Juul, who produced “The Irishman,” has founded a new startup called NFT Studios, in hopes of fully funding a film with non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Fast facts
- The startup’s first film, “A Wing and a Prayer,” will be based on the true story of Brian Milton, the first man to fly around the globe in a microlight aircraft in 1998. The film is expected to commence production in Malta and London next April, the team said on its website.
- Juul hopes to raise between US$8 million and US$10 million through NFT sales to the public and institutional investors, the Guardian reported.
- Specifically, NFT Studios has struck a deal with London-listed NFT Investments that is funding the startup US$1 million to take a 20% share in NFT Studios, according to a company statement.
- “We are in the middle of great transition in the entertainment business where traditional ways of film funding and ownership are being uprooted due to the rapid rise of streamers and other digital platforms,” Juul said in the statement.
- In a LinkedIn post, Juul went on to say: “Stay tuned for some overdue disruptions of an antiquated, and ineffective film financing system that is out of sync with modern day content distribution while it creates unnecessary and delaying bottlenecks for even the best storytellers in the world.”
- “The funding of a new feature film like ‘A Wing and a Prayer’ with NFTs will revolutionize thinking around the production of new film and media content in the future and NFT Studios is set to play a leading role,” Jonathan Bixby, executive chairman of NFT Investments, said in the statement. “I see tremendous appetite from NFT investors in a product like this.”
- NFT Studios said on its website it will develop and produce up to six movies a year, half of which are already in the last stages of development, as well as limited series. NFT Studios said it will finance its own portfolio of content.