Real Movie for Virtual Bablos
Victor Ginzburg’s Empire V, an adaptation of the novel by Victor Pelevin, is the first major movie ever to be funded using crypto investments.
The ICO funding campaign reached its soft cap on September 1st — the first day of sales of the tokens, which are called “Bablos” after a key theme in the book and movie. This unlocked the smart-contract, allowing Kvadrat production company to shoot another 15 percent of the movie in September, bringing the total completion rate to 85 percent.
“Crypto investments meant that we were able to shoot half of what remained to be done in September alone. There are several key scenes ahead, and some of them will feature people who pioneered our crowd-funding when the movie went into production. Some other roles will be given away soon in a lottery between Bablos token buyers. This is a new and exciting feeling for a movie-maker like myself: to witness interest in the movie when it is still being made, before the release,” says Victor Ginzburg.
Successful crypto investments in the movie business are something new in Russia and worldwide. Ginzburg will use most of the ICO funds to employ the world’s most advanced special effect and computer graphics professionals to work on Empire V.
The work will be carried out by Los Angeles studio LOGAN, headed by Alexei Tylevich, which has created concepts for Apple, Nike, Microsoft, Sony, Lexus and Madonna, and is currently developing pre-visuals for MARVEL. Poland based 3D-animation studio Platige Image, one of the oldest brands in the industry, will do most of the co-production. A Dutch crew has been invited to provide fractal graphics — a new movie technology, used in Doctor Strange.
The tokensale is capped at 3.36mn euros, which covers 40% of the Empire Vbudget. Token buyers will be entitled to 85% of the tokens issued while the rest will be distributed to the project team, movie artists and a community bounty program.
“Limiting our fundraising goal and reducing the team’s token allocation were both deliberate moves,” says Maria Kapralova, producer of Empire V. “We slashed all non-core costs to the minimum and didn’t promise the crew any super bonuses. Our white paper states clearly that the funds collected will only be used for production. We intend to use the money wisely and effectively to make sure that our investors get good returns. People appreciate that, and we already received money from 65 investors. We are pleased to see that Bablos buyers aren’t limiting themselves to one purchase, but are slowly building up their positions through repeated purchases”.
The movie will be released in 4Q19. Token holders will receive proportional income from domestic and international box office.
“Our current profit estimates for crypto investors are very approximate and we are sticking to the lower end of the range. In reality, a movie produced in Moscow that describes vampires who control human society via glamour and discourse has good chances of earning several-fold more internationally. Empire V is a revolutionary look at consumer society, beauty for money and money instead of life. Pelevin was ahead of his time in 2006 when he described a system where people’s craving for money produces energy to feed supreme beings. It’s now, as we approach 2020, that we have adequate visual technologies to picture this world and show it to the mass viewer — people who are young, receptive and open to new ideas,” says producer Ivan Zassoursky.
Bablos tokens are easy to handle for both large and small investors: they can be bought with Ethereum (50 Bablos for 1 ETH), Bitcoin, WebMoney, and in Russia with Sberbank-Online Visa or MasterCard payments (up to RUB 15,000). WebMoney Transfer is acting as project partner for technical aspects of financing.
Bablos offers more than just dividends: the token can be used in upcoming projects of the Pelevin’s franchise, exchanged for gifts and bonuses or used to buy tickets for the closed crypto-premiere.
You can invest in Bablos on the campaign’s official website. The ICO will end on December 1, so hurry up as there are good chances that the hard cap is reached before that!
You can buy Bablos on the official web site of the campaign
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