Warner Bros announced that tomorrow (October 21) it plans to release an extended version of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring movie as NFT and launch the WB Movieverse.

The NFT will be released in two versions with eight hours of features in addition to the movie and AR collectibles. A Mystery Edition will provide a location-specific art and navigation menu from one of the three movie locations. The Epic edition includes all three locations, as well as additional images.

Warner collaborated with Eluvio for the project.

“The Lord of the Rings fans can now purchase, engage and trade in an epic living multimedia experience that is sure to surprise and delight them,” said Michelle Munson, CEO and co-founder of Eluvio. “It really is designed for a mass consumer audience, not just Web3 enthusiasts, which is why it should, and does, feel so remarkable and appealing.

From a strategic perspective, this is potentially a new way to extend the life of movies that lend themselves to collectibles, like The Lord of the Rings. It is planning to release 10,000 of the Mystery edition and 999 of the Epic edition.

For now, you also get the added bonus of a bit more advertising by adding the web3 and NFT angle.

And you get a cut of future NFT resales – the greater of 10% or $7.99 per sale.

Are there any drawbacks? The only possible one is that not everyone is a fan of web3 and NFT. A large part of the gaming community is positively anti-NFT. A recent survey of UK youth (18-24) found that 70% believe NFTs are scams.

Warner Bros has generally gotten ahead of the competition, releasing an NFT for Dune Movie ahead of the premiere and Batman NFTs, which may influence the story. It also launched a standalone DC Comics NFT marketplace.

Meanwhile, Eluvio’s original expertise was in digital video technology. He later turned to blockchain, developing his Ethereum-compatible Content Fabric sidechain. Fox invested in Eluvio last year and its technology powers Fox’s Blockchain Creative Labs digital marketplace offering.