Filmmaker David Goyer Bets on Blockchain for Next Sci-Fi Franchise

TORONTO — David Goyer, the filmmaker whose credit embody the Blade trilogy, The Dark Knight, and Apple TV’s Foundation sequence, mentioned Friday he’s constructing a brand new blockchain-based science-fiction universe known as Emergence.

The world of Emergence, in accordance with Goyer, options spaceships, relic-hunting and white holes — science-fiction staples that may function the muse for a sprawling transmedia venture constructed inside Incention, Goyer’s new blockchain platform.

In a panel dialogue at CoinDesk’s Consensus convention in Toronto, Goyer appeared alongside SY Lee of Story Protocol, the mental property-focused blockchain upon which Incention and Emergence are primarily based. There, Goyer laid out his imaginative and prescient for Incention, saying the platform will enable followers to co-create the Emergence universe alongside skilled storytellers.

“The idea is that we’re going to involve the community in all of this, and they’ll have an opportunity to create characters who will be joining the podcast, joining the animation, etc.,” he mentioned.

Goyer criticized Hollywood’s strategy to IP-building, calling it “very top down” and gradual to adapt. “Franchises are built in the film and television industry [on] models that are a century old,” he mentioned. “It’s very hard to innovate. It’s very hard to break into Hollywood if you’re a newcomer.” Web3, he added, may assist change that.

Story Protocol, launched in 2023, has raised greater than $80 million from backers together with a16z, Hashed, and Endeavor. The platform presents instruments for registering, monitoring and monetizing mental property on the blockchain.

“Each intellectual property has its own program, licensing and royalty-sharing rights,” Lee defined on Friday. “Without any middleman, someone can remix, license, and basically build upon someone else’s IP,” he added. “According to the rules set by the IP owner […] they could share the upside together.”

Goyer mentioned he wrote a 2,500-page story bible to anchor the Emergence universe. “We hired a bunch of really talented concept artists that had worked on the Harry Potter and Star Wars franchises, and a number of Hugo and Nebula Award-winning science fiction authors to write stories within the universe using the bible that I created,” he mentioned.

That materials additionally served because the coaching knowledge for an AI agent, dubbed “Atlas,” which Goyer mentioned will assist contributors co-create inside a pre-defined narrative framework.

“This is what I would say is sort of a sanctioned use of AI, where we’re not just scraping information,” he mentioned.

Visitors to the Emergence platform can examine its characters and settings or generate their very own. The group could then upvote user-generated tales and visuals. An editorial board — chaired by Goyer — will decide which submissions grow to be a part of the official canon.

“We’ll let our community up-vote the characters that the community themselves have created,” he mentioned. “Then the editorial board — which is myself and a few other people — will decide which of these characters best suits the overall franchise.”

“AI, Web3, blockchain — none of this stuff is going away, right? The whole world’s becoming tokenized,” Goyer mentioned. “So, for my sake, I just thought this is something I need to learn about and get involved in.”

While AI and blockchain have raised fears of job loss and the commodification of inventive labor, Goyer mentioned his hope is to make use of the know-how in ways in which empower artists.

“It’s really about deciding whether I’m going to stick my head in the sand, or I’m going to have a seat at the table and see, in my own small way, whether or not I can help guide this in a way that’s beneficial to creative types like myself,” he mentioned.