According to an exclusive report in Deadline, film enthusiast Kevin Smith will join the ranks of such serious artists as Quentin Tarantino and Taco Bell in the world of Non-Fungible Tokens. Smith today announced plans to release his next 90-minute exercise in running a digital camera, the horror anthology KillRoy Was Here, in the form of a 5,555-part NFT collection.
KillRoy will be the first film to be released as an NFT, making Smith a technical pioneer in the vein of his hero George Lucas, or perhaps more accurately like William Castle, who released films with various gimmicks including “Percepto,” which involved attaching a vibrating motor to the underside of a seat to simulate creatures from z-grade horror film The Tingler getting loose in the theater.
KillRoy Was Here will only be available to those who buy into the digital token, which will come with an exclusive link to KillRoy-themed artwork, a download link to the film, and a license to merchandise KillRoy. This license will also allow the holder to create their own short films using the characters and situations from the film.
Smith told Deadline that these short films will make up the bulk of KillRoy’s sequel, saying, “And along with a brand new chapter I’ll shoot next year, the shorts and animation that the KillRoy NFT owners create with their own KillRoy’s will make up the bulk of our sequel anthology.” In essence, NFT owners are paying for the right to create a short film, which Kevin Smith will then use in his next movie — one he will get paid for, while they will not. For fans of the once critically-acclaimed auteur, this will represent a chance to have their work play alongside his.
Kevin Smith was a film school dropout when his black-and-white comedy Clerks, shot on a shoestring budget in the New Jersey convenience store where Smith worked, captured the zeitgeist of a young “slacker” generation. It won big at the prestigious film festivals Cannes and Sundance, and has since been registered in the Library of Congress as a film of significant importance. Smith announced that Clerks III will likely be released in Fall 2022.