‘The Lord of the Rings’ Is Being Turned Into NFTs

Warner Bros. is taking a big step into the crypto world, making them the first movie studio to do so. They’re selling a Lord Of The Rings NFT. For the uninitiated, an NFT is a non-fungible token. That means that it’s a digital indicator of one’s ownership of a piece of non-physical media. Before NFTs, most movies, music, or art have just been copies of the same file, which can be reproduced and easily shared. NFTs are different because there are only as many copies of the content as there are NFTs. Confusing? We know.

The Fellowship of The Ring NFTs are only the first in a planned series of WB Movieverse NFTs. WB is partnering with Eluvio and using its blockchain network for this release. The partnership will release 999 copies of the Epic Edition of the film, for $100 dollars. They'll also release 10,000 mystery editions, priced at $30 dollars. More details on both:

Both allow buyers to watch the extended version of the film (which clocks in at 3 hours and 48 minutes) in 4K UHD, along with access to more than eight hours of special features; hundreds of images; and hidden AR collectibles. The Epic Edition includes navigation menus for three film locations — The Shire, Rivendell, Mines of Moria — along with location-specific key art. The Mystery Edition includes one of them, assigned at random. The Epic Edition also includes extra image galleries not in the Mystery Edition.

Jessica Schell of WB explained the following: “First and foremost, we’re always looking at ways to delight and surprise our movie fans and collectors, and that’s especially true for The Lord of the Rings. It lets fans experience the movie in a whole new way.”

While NFTs have historically been (and still are) extremely controversial, Eluvio claims that their Content Blockchain is a much more carbon-friendly approach to NFTs than most other marketplaces. (That doesn’t necessarily mean carbon-neutral.) Although it seems like a decent idea with a fairly low cost of entry, we’ll just have to wait and see how it pans out.