Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring NFT Special Editions Prizes

Fanatic collectors of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring will have the chance to purchase limited multimedia NFT (Nonfungible Token) versions of the fantasy epic.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is partnering with blockchain company Eluvio to launch The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Version) Web3 Movie Experience, which will be available in two distinct editions ending Friday, March 21 October to appear at web3.wb.com. It’s the first time a major studio has released a film as NFTs, which are unique identifiers that verify ownership of digital content.

The Fellowship of the Ring NFTs are the first to become available on the WB Movieverse, a new marketplace that will include more titles from the studio in the future. Jessica Schell, GM and EVP, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment said future releases are yet to be determined. The platform allows fans to buy, sell and trade film NFTs.

WB and Eluvio are minting 999 copies of the Epic Edition priced at $100 each and 10,000 copies of the Mystery Edition priced at $30. Both allow buyers to watch the extended version of the film (which lasts 3 hours and 48 minutes) in 4K UHD, along with access to over eight hours of special features; hundreds of images; and hidden AR collectibles. The Epic Edition includes navigation menus for three filming locations – The Shire, Rivendell, Mines of Moria – along with location-specific key art. The Mystery Edition includes one of these, which is randomly assigned. The Epic Edition also includes additional image galleries not included in the Mystery Edition.

“First and foremost, we’re always looking for ways to delight and surprise our film fans and collectors, and that’s especially true with The Lord of the Rings,” said Schell. “Fans experience the film in a whole new way.”

Schell called The Fellowship of the Ring, which premiered in 2001, an “evergreen” film with a passionate fan base. The film’s NFT drop also comes amid Amazon’s Prime Video release of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series, so JRR Tolkien’s Middle-earth has been in the zeitgeist of late.

The expanded edition of The Fellowship of the Ring was available on previous WB Home Entertainment releases, as was all eight hours of bonus video content. In the NFTs, it’s all wrapped into one experience, along with the new AR collectibles (e.g. a wand) hidden around the various locations. Note that not only is The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring available in a variety of formats, it is currently streaming on HBO Max (both standard and enhanced versions). So why would anyone want to buy one of the NFTs?

WB and Eluvio call The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Version) Web3 Movie Experience a “live movie experience” and not just a copy of the movie. Warner Bros. “can personalize content for each NFT — to make it a gameplay experience over time,” said Michelle Munson, CEO and co-founder of Eluvio.

Commenting on Warner Bros.’ decision on the number of NFTs to be minted for this release, Schell explained, “It’s that balance between wanting it to be available to fans and wanting to have a level of scarcity and to have exclusivity.”

To purchase any of the NFTs, users must create an Eluvio Media Wallet, which acts as a digital vault, allowing consumers to stream and purchase content. Fellowship of the Ring NFTs can be purchased through credit cards or cryptocurrency wallets.

Eluvio’s content blockchain enables native Web3 media experiences, and the company claims it offers a “significantly more carbon efficient alternative” to other digital asset management and NFT mining platforms. With the release of Lord of the Rings, the core digital assets of the experience along with the derived NFTs are all on the blockchain, not just the token (NFT) itself. This means that smart contracts and content experiences are dynamically updated over time can become.

Here is an image of the Rivendell Image Gallery included in the The Fellowship of the Ring NFT Special Editions: