Because the future is now and the present is the past, Megan Ellison is bringing virtual reality to the production company she built partially on her billionaire father’s Oracle fortune, Annapurna Pictures. Ellison is launching the new V.R. division with VRSE.farm and Chris Milk, a “veteran V.R. artist” who has directed music videos for the likes of Kanye West, U2, and Arcade Fire. Milk’s Evolution of Verse will debut at this year’s Sundance Film Festival New Frontier exhibition as the first project under Annapurna’s V.R. division—an experience that, according to the Sundance website, is a “photo-realistic CGI-rendered 3-D virtual reality film that takes the viewer on a journey from beginning to new beginning.” The vague-sounding expedition will also launch to the public through the VRSE app, available on both iOS and Android.
Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures launched in 2011 and has financed many critically acclaimed movies, including Zero Dark Thirty, Her, American Hustle, and, most recently, Foxcatcher. With that in mind, the timing of this deal is actually quite unfortunate, as it seems unlikely that Foxcatcher will receive a remastered V.R. version allowing viewers to fully engage with every angle of Steve Carell’s prosthetic nose.