David Goyer Is Building a New Blockchain-Based Sci-Fi Universe Called 'Emergence'

David Goyer, the filmmaker whose credits include the Blade trilogy, The Dark Knight, and Apple TV's Foundation series, said Friday he is building a new blockchain-based science-fiction universe called Emergence.

David Goyer, known for the Blade trilogy, The Dark Knight and Apple TV’s Foundation series, is building a new science-fiction universe called Emergence. It will be powered by blockchain and feature spaceships, relic-hunting and white holes.

The world of Emergence will form the basis for a sprawling transmedia project housed within Incention, Goyer’s new blockchain venture.

At CoinDesk’s Consensus conference in Toronto on Friday, Goyer appeared alongside SY Lee of Story Protocol, the intellectual property-focused blockchain upon which both Incention and Emergence are based.

There, Goyer described his vision for Incention, which will see fans collaborate with professional storytellers to expand the Emergence universe.

“The idea is that we’re going to be involving the community in all of this, and they’ll have an opportunity to create characters who will be joining the podcast, joining the animation, etc.,” he said.

Goyer expressed his criticism of Hollywood’s approach to IP-building, deeming it “very top down” and slow to adapt.

“Franchises are built in the film and television industry [on] models that are a century old,” he said. “It’s very hard to innovate. It’s very hard to break into Hollywood if you’re a newcomer.” Web3, he feels, could be the key to change.

Story Protocol, launched earlier this year, has secured over $80 million in funding from investors like a16z, Hashed and Endeavor. The protocol provides the technology for registering, tracking and monetizing intellectual property on the blockchain.

“Each intellectual property has its own program, licensing and royalty-sharing rights,” Lee explained at Consensus. “Without any middleman, someone can remix, license, and basically build upon someone else’s IP. According to the rules set by the IP owner … they could share the upside together.”

Goyer shared that he penned a 2,500-page story bible to serve as the foundation for the Emergence universe.

“We hired a bunch of really talented concept artists that had worked on the Harry Potter and Star Wars franchises, and a number of Hugo and Nebula Award-winning science fiction authors to write stories within the universe using the bible that I created.”

This material was further used to train an AI agent, dubbed “Atlas,” which will assist contributors in co-creating within a pre-defined narrative framework.

“This is what I would say is sort of a sanctioned use of AI, where we’re not just scraping information,” said Goyer.

Those who visit the Emergence platform will be able to read about its characters and settings, or contribute their own. Community members will then vote on the stories and visuals they enjoy. An editorial board, chaired by Goyer, will decide which submissions become part of the official canon.

“We’ll let our community up-vote the characters that the community themselves have created,” saidGoyer. “Then the editorial board — which is myself and a few other people — will decide which of these characters best suits the overall franchise.”

“AI, Web3, blockchain — none of this stuff is going away, right? The whole world’s becoming tokenized,” said the filmmaker. “So, for my sake, I just thought this is something I need to learn about and get involved in.”

While both AI and blockchain have sparked concerns about job losses and the commodification of creative labor,Goyer expressed his hope to see the technology used in ways that empower artists.

“It’s really about deciding whether I’m going to stick my head in the sand, or I’m going to have a seat at the table and see, in my own small way, whether or not I can help guide this in a way that’s beneficial to creative types like myself.”