Dumb Crypto Bros Think They Bought ‘Dune’ Rights For $3 Million

Watch, Denis Villeneuve. Cryptocurrency makers are coming to work for you — or so they think.

Late last year, a crypto-backed organization called the Spice DAO won an auction for a rare copy of the filmmaker. Alejandro Jodorowsky’s pamphlet for his never-before-produced adaptation of Sand dunes. Collector’s Valuable Item is expected to fetch between $30-40,000 at Christie’s, so when it sold for a staggering $3 million, it was clear something was up. price.

Created in the 1970s, the manuscript is one of the few surviving copies. It has beautiful storyboards (some of which are already available to watch Online) for Jodorowsky’s 10-hour adaptation of Frank Herbert’s iconic 1965 novel of the same name. Although it was never made into a film, the experimental director’s ambitious vision captured the fascination of sci-fi fans and had a profound impact on the development of the genre. of this kind (it was even the subject of a documentary, Jodorowsky’s Sand Dunes).

All of this is to say that while still an important cultural artifact, Jodorowsky’s Sand dunes unlike Herbert’s Sand dunes, rights controlled by WarnerMedia. Obviously owning one doesn’t mean you own the other. However, as said in a tweet Regarding their purchase plan, Spice DAO seems to believe that they now own the adaptation rights to Sand dunes rather than simply a physical copy of Jodorowsky’s book. Suddenly, raised eyebrows make a lot more sense.

In the tweet, the team worked out a three-point plan for Jodorowsky’s Sand dunes. The first goal is really doable — to digitize and make the book public. However, the other two points to a fundamental misunderstanding of their ownership. They expressed their desire to “produce an original limited edition animated series inspired by the book and sell it to a streaming service” and “support community derivative projects.” Presumably, this is meant to help artists (or crypto-obsessed bid backers) who want to make a breakthrough in creating their own versions. Sand dunes.

Despite what the tweet suggests, a post on Spice DAO’s Average page from December, titled “Spice DAO Next Steps”, claiming that the group knew they did not own Herbert’s IP. Despite that, they say “we are uniquely positioned with the opportunity to create our own addition to the genre as an homage to the giants that have come before us”. If they never intended to draw specifically from sand dunes, Why they needed to spend $3 million on Jodorowsky’s work to make their own sci-fi cartoon is unclear. But for now, Timothée Chalamet can rest easy knowing that his status as Arrakis’ emotionally incapable messiah is kept secret.