Let’s all take a deep breath before diving into this one. Zero Contact—the film that was entirely virtually produced during the height of the pandemic and stars Anthony Hopkins (The Silence Of The Lambs)—will make its premiere on the NFT platform Vuele. While Zero Contact is not the first film to premiere on a cryptocurrency platform (independent film Lotawana marked that milestone earlier this year), it joins more yawn-worthy films’ attempts to build anticipation through the sale of NFTs.
Zero Contact stars Veronica Ferres, Aleks Paunovic, Lilly Krug, TJ Kayama and Martin Sternmark. Written by Cam Cannon, the film was shot through Zoom in 17 different territories throughout the pandemic. According to Deadline, the film follows five characters around the world connected only by their devotion to tech titan Finley Hart (Hopkins). They are forced to work together to shut down Hart’s secret invention, a machine that is either the solution to mankind’s problems or the end of life on Earth. So, like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk in five years.
“Everything about this film is unconventional, from the way we shot it using Zoom and remote production, to its distribution,” says producer and director Rick Dugdale.
Many forms of digital media have appeared on NFT markets over the last year, including viral Youtube videos, tweets, memes, digital art, and previously unreleased songs from musicians like Shawn Mendes and Kings of Leon. Vuele allows users to pay for the film through cryptocurrency or credit cards. It’s unclear how many users will get to watch Zero Contact, as the general idea behind NFT is items sold must be limited or original versions of media. Dugdale says Vuele will have four or five “drops” of Zero Contact, like some Hypebeast clothing brand. Purchasers will own the film, plus extras still to be determined that would vary from token to token to create different price points.
“It creates scarcity in copies of the film, and protects against piracy,” says Dugdale. We give it like two days before it’s viewable on 123movies.
It’s an interesting take on viewing films, in a current climate where viewers don’t own anything they view on streaming sites like Netflix and Hulu. However, there is one less expensive and more eco-friendly way around this “not owning content” idea...something called DVDs, remember those?