'Wall Street', 'American Psycho' Studio Raising Film Funding via Avalanche

The son of a storied Hollywood producer is taking his father’s company where few in town have dared venture: into crypto.

Pressman Film, an independent production house that helped create classic movies including “Wall Street” and “American Psycho,” announced on Thursday that it will use investment platform Republic—on blockchain network Avalanche—to launch a tokenized public fund that will allow members of the public to invest in a slate of upcoming films. 

“My father, Edward R. Pressman, is widely considered a pioneer in our industry for the innovative methods he brought to financing film production across his five-decade career,” Sam Pressman, who now helms his late father’s company, said in a statement. “Now, with the entertainment marketplace amid unprecedented change, it's clearly the time for innovative, new ways to fund creativity and film innovation once again.”

The new fund will initially support a slate of six potential Pressman-backed films: three based on pre-existing intellectual property, and three sourced from original concepts.

For as little as $200, investors can buy a stake in the diversified slate. They would only start to receive payouts, though, if one or more of those films made it from development—which costs money in and of itself—into production. 

If a movie makes it to production, then investors will receive a portion of Pressman’s producing fee and rights fees. If the film makes it all the way through production to release and distribution, investors will then get a portion of its net profits. 

To tide investors over in the (statistically high) chance that one of the six movies in the slate does not emerge as a box office smash, Pressman is also offering perks that—at the highest tier of investment—include set visits, producer credits, and premiere tickets. 

So far, the fund has already raised $314,000 of its $1.5 million goal.

While other projects have already played with the notion of funding film productions via NFTs, most of these endeavors have had to carefully avoid framing those NFTs as illegally unregistered securities that collectors purchase with an expectation of profit due to the work of others. 

That thorny issue has been sidestepped here thanks to the inclusion of Republic as a middleman. Backed by Wall Street juggernauts including Morgan Stanley, the platform is registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and has successfully hosted crowdfunding campaigns for other entertainment entities, including from the producers of “The Walking Dead.” 

As the entertainment industry faces a massive contraction, many creators are finding it tremendously difficult to get films through development, let alone production and distribution.

And if a film does manage to get over the finish line, it can still become a disaster. Pressman’s most recent project, “The Crow”—a reboot of the 1994 original—debuted last week as one of 2024’s worst bombs. The film netted $4.6 million in its opening weekend against a pre-marketing budget of $50 million, and currently boasts a 23% score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

Tapping into the wallets of eager retail investors could offer film producers a means to diversify funding sources while also mitigating risk.

While blockchain tech isn’t at the center of Pressman’s campaign—investments are taken in fiat currency and most of the blockchain tech involved is on the back end—it appears that the younger Pressman is an emerging technology advocate who is also the rare outspoken proponent of AI’s creative benefits within Hollywood.

Edited by Andrew Hayward