Actor and Filmmaker David Bianchi Previews His Web3 ‘RZR’ Series

As Hollywood continues to roll out the red carpet for awards season, another red carpet rolled out Monday night for Web3 when actor and filmmaker David Bianchi invited celebrities and guests to attend a public table reading for his upcoming series, “RZR”.

“I am absolutely convinced that within the next three to five years, everything we interact with music, film, intellectual property, and even information systems will be somehow tied to a blockchain mechanism,” he says. Bianchi.

Table reads are a distinctive part of the film and television development process, offering the cast, crew, and creative team the opportunity to hear the script read aloud. These readings usually happen behind closed doors in a sound studio. Bianchi said that this was something he wanted to change.

What’s unusual about this? [table read] is that we are making it public,” Bianchi said. decipher in the event. “In the spirit of decentralization, we are doing everything out in the open; I am very confident in the material, I am very confident in all my partnerships,” he said.

“RZR” takes place in a dystopian Los Angeles, plagued by neural implants, hacker culture, and the underbelly of black market crime. Bianchi plays Grimm, a war veteran and engineer who augments his body to access the web using neural implants, similar to the netrunners in Netflix’s Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.

“I always call it like ‘Black Mirror’ meets ‘Mr. Robot’ with a bit of ‘Children of Men’ sprinkled on top,” Bianchi said.

Bianchi, whose previous credits include Syfy’s “Resident Alien” and USA Network’s “Queen of the South,” says the genesis of “RZR” stemmed from a conversation with Sarah Buxton, Gala Films’ COO, in the summer of 2022. The production The process began shortly thereafter, with Bianchi penning the script for the series, assembling a team of creators, and minting two RZR NFTs.

Originally released in 2019, Gala is dedicated to Web3 gaming and entertainment. Gala Film will produce and handle the distribution of RZR.

“We at Gala are proud to produce this project with David, continuing our mission to bring creative power to artists, both established and emerging,” Gala COO Sarah Buxton said in a statement sent to decipher. “With this being our first project under Gala Films, we are breaking new ground in the way Web3 entertainment is presented to the public and we are also excited about our future projects.”

Filming for “RZR” begins next month, with a release date later this year. Noelle Hubbell (“Don’t Worry Darling,” “Superstore”) will produce with Gala Film, and CAA’s Claire Koonce (“Black Panther,” “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”) will serve as casting director.

“RZR” aims to be firmly based on blockchain technology. While digital currency isn’t new to the cyberpunk genre—”Cyberpunk 2077″ or “Westworld” for example—RZR puts digital assets like NFTs and cryptocurrencies like Ethereum front and center.

Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, allow collectors to transparently provide proof of ownership of digital art, music, data, game assets, personal records, and more. In recent years, film productions, musicians, and others have used NFTs not only to raise funds for their projects, but also as a way to connect directly with fans and give them the ability to own a piece of the film or access aspects of it. the same. filmmaking process that includes the meeting of directors, cinematographers and production designers.

“I think the ability to have immutable technology that can create scarcity and that can’t be tampered with, broken or destroyed is absolutely critical to the film and entertainment process because intellectual property has always been an issue,” he said, adding. that blockchain allowed him to free himself from the need for a side hustle.

Bianchi says that RZR is fully funded and that while RZR NFTs were sold to build engagement and community around the project, the project was not built on the hope of selling NFTs upfront.

“Most of the other independent filmmakers in the space are selling NFTs based on a speculative project,” he explains. “You sell a lot of NFTs, then you have to hope you make a good movie or a good show… you have to hope it’s solid, you have to hope you get distribution.”

Bianchi says his project is already greenlit and in production, guaranteed to be distributed at the Gala film with a yet-to-be-named “major” streaming service at a later date.

“We are offering something much more attractive and much more lucrative to our NFT community and our potential holders,” he said.

“I found that the blockchain and NFT community is very influential, they are sophisticated, tech savvy, young, hungry and interested in high art,” Bianchi added. “I think all of those things combined make an amazingly delicious gumbo for the potential of blockchain for movies.”