TheWrap is pleased to announce a four-part series examining the metaverse, Web3 and entertainment, exploring the surge of investment and excitement surrounding this new phase of the internet.
Starting Monday, July 11, with a lead piece titled “How to Lose a Billion Dollars in the Metaverse and Other Mysteries of Web3,” the series explores the basic premise of the metaverse, how film producers are looking to leverage it, how visual effects that create digital avatars will revolutionize opportunity for actors and others in the entertainment sector, and why Hollywood companies are snatching up metaverse real estate without yet knowing what it will deliver for them.
“We are aiming to tease out the facts from the hype, and really identify what the opportunity of Web3 is for Hollywood, versus all the breathless speculation,” editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman said.
The series is featured on WrapPRO, TheWrap’s subscriber-only website aimed at industry professionals. The first installment will be made available for free.
Here’s an excerpt from the first installment:
“The metaverse hasn’t been invented yet. Right now, it’s mostly a mix of marketing hype and wishful thinking, not so much a thing as an idea — or, rather, a haze of ideas floating in a cloud of aspirations. Nobody even knows if it will even end up getting built, at least in the way it’s being advertised.
“And yet, Hollywood and Silicon Valley are scrambling to get in on the ground floor of this brave new internet, or Web3, as some are calling it. Companies like Disney, Microsoft, Snap and Nike, along with scores of smaller startups as well as moguls like Bob Iger (who earlier this year joined the board of a virtual avatar startup called Genies), are shoveling tens of millions of dollars into its development. Facebook is so gung-ho on the metaverse, it changed its name to Meta last year and is pumping more than $10 billion into building the infrastructure for what it’s claiming will be the next evolutionary leap for the internet.
The series was created and edited by TheWrap executive editor Thom Geier, WrapPro assistant managing editor Jethro Nededog and contributing editor Benjamin Svetkey, and written by Svetkey with reporters Antoinette Siu and Brian Welk.
Some key remarks:
* “Nobody knows what the metaverse is,” one tech executive confessed to TheWrap. “But nobody wants to be the person who admits that they don’t know.”
* Jake Becker, the head of talent relations at Genies, on digital avatars: “Different genders, different voices, different species, different fashion styles completely, different social economics, all these traits. Why take what you have physically? It’s really about stripping all of that away and with complete freedom and complete control, who do you want to be? That’s one of our most passionate through-lines through the company, being who they want to be.”
* “If you’re a producer who owns IP with the power of the blockchain, you can develop, finance, produce and distribute your movie without relying on middle-man banks, financiers and studios, suddenly everything about how Hollywood has made movies for decades can be turned on its head.”
The series will roll out as follows:
- Monday: How to Lose a Billion Dollars in the Metaverse and Other Mysteries of Web3
- Tuesday: Why Film Producers Are So Excited About the Metaverse: ‘Everybody’s Dream Can Come True’
- Wednesday: Why VFX Companies Want to Craft Your Hyper-Real Avatar for the Metaverse
- Thursday: The Next Real Estate Boom: It’s in the Metaverse
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