Haasan, who turned 67 on Sunday, announced his entry into the digital space, with the launch of collectables or NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and plans for his museum in an upcoming metaverse game from Fantico, an Indian licensed digital collectables platform.
“I am excited to explore the emerging intersection of the digital and physical world, which is now becoming popularly known as metaverse,” Haasan said. “My life’s journey of over six decades will be my offering for this metaverse.”
With fans spending big money on digital collectables, more celebrities are joining the party. Stars such as
Amitabh Bachchan and Salman Khan as well as cricketers and leagues such as the Indian Super League (ISL) have launched their NFTs.
Fantico will first launch various digital collectables including posters, avatars and videos for Haasan, founder Abhayanand Singh told ET.
“Over the next few months, we are looking at the launch of the game-based metaverse, where Haasan will have his own world, his personal museum,” he said.
This will allow Haasan’s fans globally to interact with him by exploring his world, interacting with his digital avatars, buying memorabilia and souvenirs—both physical and digital—and participating in meet-and-greet sessions within the game.
Haasan is known for experimenting with genres, visual styles and technology in his films.
Globally, rapper Snoop Dogg entered the NFT metaverse via his virtual mansion on The Sandbox in September.
Singh said Fantico is also in talks with more actors, sportspersons and studios and others from the creative community to be part of the metaverse.
Globally, NFTs – based on blockchain-enabled technology that proves unique ownership of digital content such as videos, photographs or audio – are changing the way fans buy collectables.
Bollywood has been getting in on the trend. Just last week, Amitabh Bachchan sold a collection of his NFTs for $966,000 recently. The most successful was the Madhushala collection—his recital of father Harivanshrai Bachchan’s poem—which got bids worth more than Rs 5.5 crore.
Last month,
Salman Khan joined hands with BollyCoin, a Bollywood NFT marketplace, for his NFT collections. The company said it sold 1 million tokens in the first three hours of the launch. Khan also
launched the short-video app Chingari’s crypto tokens, $Gari.
