Rosario Dawson to star in NFT-backed anime series from Gala

Actors Rosario Dawson and Tony Revolori will both play the lead role The ghosts of the ruina Western anime series from Gala Film, the entertainment arm of Web3 startup Gala Games.

The ghosts of the ruin follows a group of players as they navigate a potentially deadly tournament in a near-future dystopian version of San Francisco where games sync directly into the players’ minds and are inseparable from real life.

The series, produced and developed by new media content studio Battle Island, will feature original music from composer Hans Zimmer’s Bleeding Fingers collective.

Dawson, last known to portray Star Wars character Ahsoka Tano in several Disney+ series – including The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fettand the upcoming limited series Ashoka—will voice Prism, a stand-offish pro player who is ready to win the tournament.

Revolori, who starred in the 2014 Wes Anderson film Grand Budapest Hotel and Marvel Studios’ latest Spider man film franchise, will voice the series’ protagonist Lee, a minor player who joins the tournament at the last minute.

The pilot episode of The ghosts of the ruin will debut on Gala’s platform in August, but will initially only be made available to holders of specialized NFTs sold to fund the show’s production. The NFTsset up in four levels, offers varying levels of immersive access to the series.

The most basic tier, “The Coder,” offers access to the show, related exclusive content and other digital collectibles for $250 worth of GALA tokens. The rarest level of NFT, “The Board Member”, allowed holders to be directly involved in the show’s production as a character or contributor. 45 of these passes were sold for $2,500 worth of GALA each.

After debuting the pilot at Gala Film, the series’ producers hope to trade it as a proof of concept to a major streaming service.

– It was important for us to support this project. We believe in the genre, the team’s approach and the series is a perfect blend of timely storytelling with top-level artistic talent,” Gala Film chief Sara Buxton said in a statement, adding that the Web3 elements will “provide a more rewarding experience” for everyone involved via digital ownership and benefits.

The ghosts of the ruin is showrun and written by Michael Ryan, who recently served as showrunner on the Apple TV+ original animated series Wolfboy and The Everything Factory. The series was created by Battle Island’s PJ Accetturo and Ryan Ramsey.

Last month, actors Danny Trejo and Mena Suvari jumped on board RZRanother Web3-native series from Gala that will premiere exclusively on the startup platform this summer.

Last week, Gala ran into problems when the crypto exchange suddenly switched Coinbase announced that it would not support an upgraded version of the company’s GALA token, without elaborating on why.