It’s gotta be the NFTs.
Spike Lee is joining the non-fungible tokens (NFTs) craze, with a collection of crypto art linked to his seminal 1986 debut film, She’s Gotta Have It.
In a partnership with content incubator The Visible Project, the filmmaker is launching a collection of 3,945 NFTs that feature original frames from She’s Gotta Have It, with additional art designed by Tré Seals and Adrian Franks. The original frames include, among others, Lee’s iconic character Mars Blackmon.
The director is set to serve as chairman of The Visible Project, with plans to hold The Visible Festival, an event that will showcase content from the project as well as other films and art.
The film that secured Lee’s reputation as the coming talent in American filmmaking in the 1980s, She’s Gotta Have It, was selected by the Library of Congress in 2019 for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” Lee adapted the film into a series for Netflix in 2017.
Lee owns and controls the rights to She’s Gotta Have It, meaning the director will avoid the legal difficulties that filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino have faced in launching NFTs linked to their best work. In November, Tarantino was sued by studio Miramax over his plans to sell NFTs related to his 1995 classic Pulp Fiction.
