Latest news with #Mogul
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Mogul Slams George Lucas: ‘Sanctimonious Hypocrite'
Barry Diller is making his thoughts on Star Wars creator George Lucas known. In a portion of Diller's tell-all, Who Knew, he details working with Lucas on the Indiana Jones franchise back when the mogul was CEO of Paramount Pictures. Diller had doubts about approving Raiders of the Lost Ark, despite studio president Michael Eisner's support. The film, led by George Lucas as co-writer and executive producer and Steven Spielberg as director, seemed risky. Though Diller liked the script and had faith in Spielberg, he was wary of the creators' steep demands. Both Spielbertg and Lucas had reputations for escalating budgets. "After the first twenty or so pages, where Indiana Jones gets chased down the mountain by a giant rock, I thought the opening segment alone would cost more than any movie we'd ever made,' Diller writes. Learning from 20th Century Fox's costly Star Wars deal, Diller insisted on airtight sequel terms. 'I wanted to retch once, and then not have to regurgitate in a new negotiation if the film was a success.' Raiders was made, becoming a massive success in 1981. But when work began on the sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Lucas demanded more money, to Diller's chagrin. 'This deal, the most generous in history, isn't worth it?' Lucas responded, 'No, not really.' When Diller reminded him of the agreed-upon terms, Lucas replied, 'Yeah, well, it's just not worth it for me unless I get more money.' Diller ultimately renegotiated the terms for the Indiana Jones sequel, but concluded: 'The Hollywood-bashing, take-the-high-ground George Lucas was actually a sanctimonious, though supremely talented … hypocrite" Mogul Slams George Lucas: 'Sanctimonious Hypocrite' first appeared on Men's Journal on May 23, 2025
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
MoviePass, Led And Co-Founded By Stacy Spikes, Lands $100M Investment To Launch Hollywood's First Daily Fantasy Entertainment Platform
New funding has been raised to help movie fans benefit from the entertainment industry. On May 1, 2025, tech platform MoviePass — with the help of its partner, the C3 Foundation — announced the launch of Mogul, a 'daily fantasy entertainment platform' for Hollywood, according to a press release. The platform, which is the first of its kind, allows fans to participate in fantasy-style tournaments, head-to-head matchups, and solo challenges where they can apply their insights to predict audience attendance, critic scores, award winners, and more. 'You basically create your own studio by picking real movies, real actors, real directors and the way those projects behave in the real world, and your ability to pick and predict what might happen, impacts your scoring,' explained Stacy Spikes, co-founder and CEO of MoviePass, via an exclusive from Variety. Furthermore, fans can receive incentives such as blockchain-based digital rewards, including new avatar images and artwork, Inc. reports. In the future, Mogul intends to allow fans to earn cash. The app is projected to have 200,000 active users on the platform by the end of May 2025 and already has a waitlist of 400,000, Variety shared. 'We're letting people enter in waves in order to not completely overwhelm the system,' Spikes explained to the outlet. Looking ahead, the goal is revamp MoviePass to improve 'platform features, including data-driven competitions, digital collectibles, rewards-based gameplay and community-led challenges,' said Spikes, per Variety. This will be made possible through a $100 million capital investment from Global Emerging Markets. 'We've always been a company built from a fan perspective,' Spikes also said to the outlet. 'We're not a studio, we're not a theater, but we want to really find a new way of creating engagement around going to the movies. We don't want people to just sit at home. This allows film fans to show the same competitive spirit that sports teams inspire.' The post MoviePass, Led And Co-Founded By Stacy Spikes, Lands $100M Investment To Launch Hollywood's First Daily Fantasy Entertainment Platform appeared first on post MoviePass, Led And Co-Founded By Stacy Spikes, Lands $100M Investment To Launch Hollywood's First Daily Fantasy Entertainment Platform appeared first on AfroTech.
Business Wire
22-05-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
GEM Token Fund Commits $100M to MoviePass for Launch of Mogul – Hollywood's First Daily Fantasy Entertainment Platform
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--GEM Token Fund ISA Ltd. ('GEM' or the 'Fund') is pleased to announce the completion of its first transaction. The Fund's $100 million token purchase agreement with MoviePass Inc., a technology company redefining the moviegoing experience, and its partner, C3 Foundation, has been undertaken to accelerate the development of Mogul —the first-ever daily fantasy entertainment platform built for Hollywood. Mogul, which launched in beta earlier this month, lets fans play the role of a studio head—predicting box office ranking, award outcomes, and sentiment scores in a game that blends Hollywood knowledge with the competitive spirit of fantasy sports. The platform taps into the excitement of real-world entertainment speculation, transforming passive viewership into active participation. 'With Mogul, we're inviting fans to become players in the entertainment ecosystem,' said Stacy Spikes, Co-Founder and CEO of MoviePass. 'Just as fantasy sports changed how people engage with sports, Mogul will redefine how fans engage with film and television. This investment gives us the runway to build something truly game-changing.' The investment from GEM comes in the form of a flexible capital commitment over twenty-four months that MoviePass can draw upon as needed to scale Mogul. MoviePass will control the timing and the number of drawdowns, with no minimum drawdown obligation. Funds will be used to enhance platform features—including data-driven competitions, digital collectibles, rewards-based gameplay, and community-led challenges. This transaction is GEM's inaugural commitment and marks the launch of the Fund. GEM's sponsor and majority GP shareholder is GEM Group, a $3.4 billion alternative investment group based in Paris, New York, and the Bahamas - with a 30-year track record of 570 transactions across 70 countries. About GEM Token Fund ISA Ltd. (GEM) GEM Token Fund ISA Ltd. ('GEM') is a Bermuda-domiciled investment vehicle, structured as a segregated account of DigitalArray ISAC Ltd. and regulated by the Bermuda Monetary Authority as a Professional Closed Fund under the Investment Funds Act 2006. GEM provides liquidity financing to blockchain and Web3 issuers of digital assets, leveraging a global network of top-tier service providers including AI Global Strategies ISA, KPMG Audit Limited, Walkers (Bermuda) Limited, and Apex Group. GEM is sponsored by GEM Group, which provides deep expertise in emerging markets, structured finance, and venture growth to its clients and partners. For more information: About Mogul Mogul is Hollywood's first daily fantasy entertainment platform, allowing fans to predict entertainment outcomes and climb leaderboards in a gamified, data-driven environment. Built on the Sui blockchain and backed by Mysten Labs and Animoca Brands, Mogul uses virtual currency and digital rewards to power its community. Beta access is live at About MoviePass Inc. MoviePass is a technology company building the future of film engagement. From reinventing theatrical subscription to pioneering Web3 experiences, MoviePass connects audiences with the movies they love through innovation, community, and storytelling. Learn more at Disclosure: This press release contains forward-looking statements which are based on current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties. The Parties hereto assume no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by law. THIS IS NOT AN OFFER TO SELL OR A SOLICITATION OF AN OFFER TO BUY A FUND OR SECURITY. ANY SUCH OFFER MAY ONLY BE MADE TO ACCREDITED INVESTORS AS DEFINED IN RULE 501 OF REGULATION D OF THE SECURITIES ACT OF 1933, AND ONLY VIA A PROSPECTUS.
Business Insider
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
The CEO of MoviePass wants its new fantasy game to do for Hollywood what FanDuel has for sports
MoviePass cofounder and CEO Stacy Spikes wants to do for Hollywood what fantasy games and betting have for sports. "Sports has really learned how to create engagement," Spikes told Business Insider. "I think we can learn something from them for the movie industry." The movie ticket subscription company is launching this week the beta version of a fantasy box office game called Mogul. In this game, moviegoers can try to predict how upcoming films will perform in theaters. Like in fantasy sports, players can build leagues — or, in Mogul's case, movie studios — with teams that include actors, directors, and movies. Players are given a budget in digital coins to build a studio and score points based on the film's box office performance. Spikes hopes the free-to-play game will drive audience engagement with daily and weekly tournaments, by setting a roster and playing out seasonally, or through head-to-head matchups with other users. If the game becomes popular, MoviePass may try to expand with gaming elements that mirror sweepstakes or other markets where players can make real money, Spikes said. He pointed to services like FanDuel and DraftKings as potential models. But, for now, he likened Mogul to "Monopoly for the entertainment industry." MoviePass wanted the game to be a 'sizable leap forward' in tech Spikes said the idea for Mogul came out of MoviePass' Friday staff calls, when employees talk about what they think the top five films will be at the box office each weekend. He pointed to recent breakout films like " Minecraft" that crushed box office projections and caught some in Hollywood off guard. MoviePass saw an opportunity to box office predictions into a game to make the app "stickier for customers" and engage them more with social features. "We were always talking about what we thought the weekend gross would be, and it was just part of our culture," Spikes said. "That was the genesis, or the beginning of us moving into this direction." Players on Mogul have studios, which operate similar to how leagues do for fantasy sports. Users can select the movies, actors, and directors they want on their team by paying for them with in-game currency called Mogul Coin. Each player gets 1 million Mogul Coins to start. Points are then awarded based on the net the movie makes at the box office. So, if the film "Wicked" makes double its production budget at the box office, the value of the film, its director, and actors like Cynthia Erivo would double in Mogul, Spike said as an example. An actor or director's value might increase even more if they win an Oscar. The game is built on Sui blockchain technology, which Spikes said gives MoviePass options for rewarding players or expanding the platform. "That's unique in that if you do reward people, whether you want to do digital collectibles or other things, building it on blockchain makes it easier to do that," he said. Like MoviePass did when it launched movie ticket subscriptions, Spikes wanted to do something that was a "sizable leap forward" with technology. "I don't think you could have built this game very well 10 years ago," Spikes said. "It wouldn't have worked if you didn't have all of these other technologies that you can use now." Mogul has a waitlist of over 400,000 people Over 400,000 people signed up for the waitlist to play Mogul, Spikes said. The company isn't planning to monetize it through ads or in-app purchases at the moment. It's mainly looking to get users to play the game and give feedback on its mechanics. You don't have to be a MoviePass subscriber to play, but the company is thinking about ways to reward players who are subscribers or go see movies in theaters with bonuses. That's one of the points of the game, after all. "The more you engage in that way, the more likely it is, you're actually going to go to the theater," Spikes said.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Remember MoviePass? It's still around—and going all in on crypto
MoviePass was once a cinephile's dream. Throughout the 2010s, the company allowed users to pay a monthly fee to watch a movie a day in theaters. In 2018, it cost $9.95 for a subscription. That's less than what some theaters charged for one film screening, let alone 30, and the company went under one year later. Now, MoviePass is back, and it's touting a crypto-powered rebrand. On Thursday, the firm unveiled 'Mogul,' which lets users fill out rosters and predict what movies are poised to win big at the box office and what actors will pull in the most awards. The product, which is available to U.S. players, uses an in-game currency and is built on the Sui blockchain. MoviePass CEO Stacy Spikes stressed to Fortune that the in-game currency is just like 'Monopoly money' and that they haven't decided on whether 'it becomes real' yet. The only information the platform puts on the blockchain is game-related data, like a player's performance, he added. The CEO had thought about fashioning Mogul like a crypto-powered prediction market, or a locale where bettors can gamble money on who they think will win an election and other real-world events. However, he and his team eventually decided against it, he said. 'When [you] talk to laypeople and you say 'crypto,' it means you're doing a memecoin, you're doing something that Trump is doing, you're doing a Dogecoin… That is not what this is,' he said, in reference to Mogul. When he spoke with Fortune on Tuesday, Spikes was attending a crypto conference in Dubai, where he visited an expansive movie theater in a mammoth mall. He chose to watch the Ben Affleck blockbuster The Accountant 2. 'Every time I put boots on the ground in a city,' he said, 'I go to the movies.' More than a decade ago, Spikes raised $1 million to launch MoviePass, which initially charged users around $30 a month. In 2017, Helios and Matheson, a publicly traded data analytics company, acquired a majority stake in the startup and led the $9.95-per-month promotion push that eventually sank the company. Spikes was soon pushed out from the board and 'informed he was no longer needed,' according to Time. Less than two years later, MoviePass went out of business and its publicly traded parent company declared bankruptcy. In 2022, Spikes bought the company back for $140,000. 'I knew I could build something again,' he said shortly after the relaunch. (In January, one of Helios and Matheson's executives pleaded guilty to securities fraud.) As he's worked on MoviePass 2.0 over the past three years, Spikes looked for new funding and found willing investors—in crypto. Animoca Brands, a longtime crypto powerhouse with a focus on NFTs, led a $5 million seed round in MoviePass in 2023, and Mysten Labs, the main company behind the Sui blockchain, led a $15 million round shortly afterwards. Both raises were for equity and token warrants, or promises of a yet-to-be-released cryptocurrency, Spikes said. 'There's two kinds of businesses that are gaining traction right now,' he told Fortune. 'Either you're an AI play, or you're a blockchain or crypto play.' Spikes decided on blockchain. He owns an expensive anime-inspired NFT, holds Bitcoin and Ethereum, and has traveled to Hong Kong, Singapore, and Denver to attend crypto conferences. 'I think that blockchain and virtual reality are going to be an amazing force together,' he proclaimed. MoviePass's blockchain play, though, is just one part of its business. Subscribers can still pay for a monthly pass, but it's not a steal at $9.95 a month for a movie a day. Instead, a 'premium' pass costs $40 for up to five movies a month. That may mean less customers, but at least, Spikes said, MoviePass is now profitable. This story was originally featured on Sign in to access your portfolio
