Investing In The Film Industry Is No Longer Just A Dream

Riaz Mehta, Founder, and CEO of ritestream, speaks about how NFT technology creates new opportunities for investors to get involved in the growing film and TV industry.

The global film and video market is expected to reach $318.2 billion by 2025, with the high demand for video content continuing to grow exponentially amid the pandemic. In the next four years, an approximate 166.2 million users will be using streaming services.

US media giants, such as Amazon, Walt Disney, and WarnerMedia, plan to spend at least $115bn on producing new TV shows and movies over the course of this year, in an attempt to play catch-up.

Within the film industry, big players drive the market when it comes to post and pre-production, as well as streaming.

The usage share of Netflix makes up an approximate 30 percent of the Video Streaming segment, and the so-called “Big Five” (Disney, Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros.) dominate 81 percent of the movie market in the U.S. and Canada. In this space, there isn’t much room for independent production companies to get the much-needed funding for their projects.

This is where NFTs have the potential to change the face of a whole industry and allow independent creators to grow, as well as welcome in new investors. NFTs are unique digital assets that are created and stored on a blockchain, where ownership is traceable, ultimately making these collectible digital items valuable.

Last year, over $41 billion worth of Ethereum-based NFTs were registered, and the crypto art-driven market is expected to overtake traditional arts in 2022.

Within this space, we have seen the rise of Fractionalized NFTs (F-NFTs), which are cryptographic tokens that allow multiple ownership in a non-fungible token.

This has created an incredible opportunity for artists to fund their projects but has also widened the pool of investors within the market. 

By introducing blockchains and NFTs into the film and TV production industry, new opportunities for investors will be on the rise.

Leading streaming platforms and studios will no longer be the only players when it comes to funding a project, and independent investors will be able to get involved.

Each piece of content created within a project is unique, so naturally, it can be encapsulated into an NFT.

The ritestream launchpad will be leading this process. By leveraging NFT technology, investors can get involved in the production of films, proposed by established producers, as well as independent creators.

This funding activity is powered by the native token RITE coin, through which initial NFTs are minted pre-production.

Let’s illustrates how this works with an example.   A Creator lists their film script onto the ritestream Launchpad for funding.  When they upload the script and associated metadata (e.g., poster) onto the platform, an NFT is generated in their wallet.   

This gives them proof of ownership on the blockchain that can’t be disputed.   Imagine that this movie costs $1m to produce and the producer wants to retain 30% ownership of the film.   A million $1 NFTs are now generated and sold to the community which beliefs in this project. 

So, these one million NFTs represent 70% ownership of the project.   These NFTs can increase in value (say, a famous actor gets attached to the film) and be traded on the ritestream marketplace or on open markets such as Open sea.  

Someone could buy 100,000 of these NFTs and receive additional benefits such as an Executive Producer credit on the film – a great way for someone with a passion for the industry to be involved without having to become a professional producer. 

Once the film gets produced, it will be monetized through the ritestream eco-system including ritestream cinemas in partner Metaverse projects (soon to be announced).   The revenues generated flow back to the NFTs via smart contracts (and therefore to the person who holds these NFTs at that time).  

Film and TV shows generate revenues for decades especially if a movie is successful (e.g., Star Wars made in 1977 still makes money today)

The demand for NFTs is growing, with 4.1 million Americans buying or selling an NFT in the past year. Currently, there are 81 million wallet users on the Blockchain.com platform, where cryptocurrency can be stored. 

Film and TV NFTs will revolutionize the way content is produced in the future and engage the very audience in the production of content that ultimately will consume this content.