Culture

Some Crypto Bros Wasted $4 Million On A ‘Dune’ Movie Concept Book Because They Wanted The Rights

'Jodorowsky’s Dune' is already online -- for free.

by Millie Roberts  19 January 2022
Dune Crypto

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A group of crypto bros have incorrectly assumed that dropping millions of dollars on a rare Dune concept book would automatically give them the rights to the franchise.

Spice DAO announced their auction win over the weekend, after spending more than $4 million AUD on an original 1975 copy of Jodorowsky’s Dune — a text chronicling the visions of an infamous filmmaker who tried and failed to turn Frank Herbert’s series into an ambitiously expensive movie back in the ’70s, before the other two films by different directors later on.

A DAO — decentralised autonomous organisation — is a bunch of people on the internet who pool cryptocurrency together for stakes in digital assets. They say their mission is to make the book public, produce an original animated limited series, and support community-led derivative projects out of it.

Estimates from last year’s auction placed the book’s value to be around $55,000 AUD max, but it was bought by a 25-year-old NFT collector for more than 7000 percent more.

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Soban Saqib told Buzzfeed News that he threw “pretty much my entire liquid network” into the sale to help the Dune-lovers over at Spice DAO elevate it to new levels. “I want to fulfil an unattained dream,” he said, despite the fact that the book is literally free online already.

In other statements, the group have claimed they’ll create a bunch of NFTs out of it, before burning the physical book, recording the burning, and selling the video as another NFT.

“While we do not own the IP to Frank Herbert’s masterpiece, we are uniquely positioned with the opportunity to create our own addition to the genre as an homage to the giants who came before us,” Spice DAO conceded in response to the backlash. Even if they produce a completely original series, they’ll probably hit a few integral copyright hurdles along the way.