Being a fan of entertainment—particularly film and television—has traditionally been a consumptive endeavor. You watch a movie or TV show, have an experience, and move on.

For LALA, the world’s first digital collectible marketplace that allows fans of movies and television shows to own a piece of the revenue streams, the mission is to create a new fan experience by creating new points of access and ownership around fan favorites.

“We’re building a consumer brand around being a fan because we’re all fans ourselves,” Hiram Vazquez, LALA’s founder and chief executive officer, said to me during a recent conversation. “I was born in Puerto Rico and when I was a little kid, I actually learned to speak English for the first time by watching movies and TV shows.”

After years of building software products, Vazquez developed the idea for the future of entertainment fandom and was able to incubate the idea with 3M from Alexis Ohanian’s venture capital fund, Seven Seven Six.

For its first drop, LALA partnered with The Wolf of Wall Street to create nonfungible tokens (NFTs) that provide the ultimate experience for fans of the iconic Leonardo DiCaprio film directed by Martin Scorsese.

“For the first IP [intellectual property] partnership, we were looking at IP that was already known, so existing projects with existing fan bases that were still relevant,” Vazquez said. “The Wolf of Wall Street was very interesting because it has amazing talent, has one of the best all-time directors tied to it, and it’s the tenth anniversary of the movie this year. With the GameStop and WallStreetBets fiasco, memes from The Wolf of Wall Street became part of Internet culture, so the title was a mix of older IP that’s still very relevant to today.”

“While the payouts are estimated at anywhere between the value of a cup of coffee to several cups of coffee, owning the unique LALA collectible is more about showcasing your fandom and gaining access to the film in a more intimate way than making money off your ownership.”

Going forward, a variety of factors will inform which IP partners LALA joins forces with.

“We’re talking to different IP owners, production companies, and studios—so there’s a lot we can go after,” Vazquez said. “It’s a bit of art and science as we approach these IPs. With community driven IP, there’s desire to engage in new ways, and seeing how people are really attracted to do more than just consume content is something we found interesting.”

Unlike other companies—like Fox’s Blockchain Creative Labs (BCL)—which are building the idea of web3 community engagement into their future IP and then cultivating those communities prior to a show’s launch——like with Dan Harmon’s new animated series Krapopolis—film or television IP doesn’t have to be a recent or upcoming release for LALA to get involved.

Vazquez cites Bored Ape Yacht Club and Doodles as examples of community driven projects in which community members became ambassadors for the IP, something LALA aims to follow with film and television properties. The challenge is getting people to care enough about existing Hollywood IP, especially in the ever expanding sea of content that competes for people’s attention.

Hiram Vazquez

“We saw an opportunity to become the platform where IP owners could directly own the relationship with their fans, and in doing so, acquire new touchpoints with the amazing IP that they hold,” Vazquez said. “Our offering is more about giving people first and foremost amazing artwork, and then breathing new life into existing IP by curating artists who can take a movie and explore different themes and influences of the main characters.”

For The Wolf of Wall Street, LALA explored the origin story of Jordan Belfort’s character and how he became the wolf. In addition to digital artwork, fans also receive a physical copy—and for the first time—the company is offering merch from the movie to establish a collection of physical merchandise.

LALA has three different pricing tiers—General Release, Limited Edition, and Director’s Cut—and depending on the tier you purchase, you’ll receive different items that are part of the bundle, such as invites to exclusive content and events. Purchasers also get a percentage ownership of certain revenue streams from the movie, specifically through the stream of IP and copyright infringement.

“For the first time ever as a fan, you can say that you’re ‘part owner’ of The Wolf of Wall Street,” Vazquez said. “There’s a few offers out there that do this in the music space, and we were able to figure out how to do it in the film space.”

LALA accomplishes its ownership distributions by taking 33% of the total revenue recovered from The Wolf of Wall Street copyright infringements—after legal costs and specifically pertaining to bootleg videos and illegal merch—and then fractionalizes them to fans on a twice-yearly basis for as long as they hold onto their collectibles for up to to 10 years. The remaining 67% will then be gradually distributed to holders over the course of future drops.

While the payouts are estimated at anywhere between the value of a cup of coffee to several cups of coffee, owning the unique LALA collectible is more about showcasing your fandom and gaining access to the film in a more intimate way than making money off your ownership.

“The way that Hollywood markets new projects is very inefficient,” Vazquez said. “They basically have to start from zero for every new project that comes out. For Barbie, there’s no way for Warner Brothers to track who the top holders of physical Barbies are in the world, but with blockchain technology, you can easily see which are the top holders of a Barbie collectible so that if and when Barbie 2 comes out, you can reach out to the top holders and invite them to a screening.”

The idea is to help studios facilitate and create a relationship with their top fans.

“It makes marketing so much more efficient and allows you to not have to spend millions of dollars to get accurate feedback,” Vazquez said. “Let’s say there’s The Wolf of Wall Street 2 that comes out. You’ll be able to see via blockchain who bought the digital collectible—the artwork—and see who also purchased a hoodie and a hat. You’ll have a more complete picture of how ‘big’ a person’s fandom is and if they went to an event or a screening that LALA organized. Now, the producers of The Wolf of Wall Street 2, if there ever is one—or studios who want to target a similar demographic—will be able to do so through us.”

According to Vazquez, LALA has a planned presence at Comic Con Los Angeles in December, which will be one of the first in-person offerings for The Wolf of Wall Street collectible holders.

“The people who attend the event will get a badge, so as a fan, you'll have the receipts showing just how big of a fan you are from all of the different touchpoints.”

Trackable touchpoints made possible through blockchain technology that ultimately aim to provide an enriched fan experience.

“For people growing up outside of the United States, having a limited fan experience is something they can definitely relate to, and it’s the same for adults,” Vazquez said. “ One of the fastest growing segments in the toy industry are toys for adults. Adults are wanting to tap into the nostalgia and the stories they grew up on, and other than connecting with fan groups and fan subgroups on Reddit, there’s really no way to do that.”

LALA hopes to create a new system of being a fan by rewarding fans for their engagement with IP, and helping IP owners directly connect with those fans.

“I believe it’s the future of entertainment and the way that big studios will be able to connect with fans, " Vazquez said. “Studios are not currently set up to own this relationship with fans, but they are definitely aware of the power of community and want to do something about it.”