Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, World of Women Partner to Adapt NFTs Into Movies, TV Shows (EXCLUSIVE)

This post was originally published on Variety

Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine has forged a storytelling partnership with World of Women (WoW), the NFT collective that is cracking open the male-dominated world of crypto currency while celebrating inclusivity and equality. World of Women launched in July 2021 with some 10,000 artworks from women creators, quickly becoming one of the most popular and profitable purveyors of non-fungible tokens.

As part of the partnership, Hello Sunshine will build out the World of Women character universe and franchise into entertainment properties including feature films, scripted and unscripted TV series. The move is another sign of the growing popularity of NFTs and the potential they hold for traditional media companies on the prowl for intellectual property.

They will also launch a Hello Sunshine x World of Women live event in conjunction with other diverse women-led NFT projects. The goal is to educate women about this new space.

“While the crypto and NFT space is largely dominated by men, there are inspiring leaders like World of Women creating incredible communities for women during this massive shift for media and technology,” said Witherspoon. “We’re proud to partner with WoW to expand their universe of characters and to develop innovative scripted and unscripted content. We look forward to engaging with the remarkable WoW community at every step of this partnership and creating opportunities for WoW holders to work collaboratively with Hello Sunshine on transforming the WoW art into powerful stories.”

The move isn’t a complete surprise. Witherspoon has been outspoken about her support of World of Women’s mission, even making her profile picture an NFT from World of Women’s collection. She’s also been using her social media platform to talk up the possibilities of the metaverse, digital art and cryptocurrencies.

Hello Sunshine shares a similar mission with World of Women. Both companies are female-led and also make a point of promoting works by female artists and authors. Hello Sunshine has produced “The Morning Show” for Apple TV and has Olivia Newman’s adaptation of Delia Owens’s “Where the Crawdads Sing” and Aline Brosh McKenna’s “Your Place or Mine” on tap. In August, Witherspoon sold a majority stake in Hello Sunshine to Candle Media, which is led by former Disney executives Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs.

World of Women’s second NFT collection will be released in 2022. The company’s NFTs can now sell for six figures and have generated more than $120 million in trading, according to Vanity Fair. The collective is represented by Guy Oseary, a manager and tech investor whose clients also include Madonna and U2, as well as the Bored Ape Yacht Club, another NFT creator.

“Hello Sunshine has been changing the narrative for women in Hollywood and we know they can play an instrumental role in shaping the narrative for women in the NFT space,” said Yam Karkai, co-founder and artist for World of Women. “As an artist, this is new territory for me, and I could not have envisioned a better partner to expand the ethos core values of our beautiful community through storytelling in new and innovative ways.”