Sony Pictures Entertainment has signed a deal with virtual-reality shop Reality One to create VR content to pair with the studio’s film slate and pre-existing franchises. The new partnership will take Sony’s properties and turn them into VR “experiences” to be distributed across the globe on various VR-capable devices.
“Sony is a company born of technological innovation and SPE born of storytelling,” Sony film chair Tom Rothman said in a statement. “VR is the next frontier in the intersection of those two forces and today we join Madison Wells’ Reality One, who has already done some of the coolest stuff out there, to push those boundaries.”
Reality One, founded by Gigi Pritzker and Clint Kisker in 2015, is the virtual/augmented reality company behind director Jon Favreau‘s VR game — or “experience,” depending on how you want to define interactive content — “Gnomes & Goblins.”
Sony is making a big push into VR. Sony Pictures is setting up a separate division just for VR content, and the company’s PlayStation division is about to launch its own VR headset that will be vastly cheaper than most others on the market, like Oculus Rift (owned by Facebook) and the HTV Vive.
Other studios have started using VR as a marketing channel, like Lionsgate with “The Blair Witch Project.”
The content that SPE will develop with Reality One will be standalone experiences merely based on Sony films.