New Crypto Movie Director, John Stalberg Jr Tells All: Skeptics, Naysayers, Judgements and More

In an interview with BREAKERMAG, the director of the movie, “Crypto”, John Stalberg J. shared the initial reactions, and the constant negative feedback he has gotten since the trailer came out in March.

Interestingly, Stalberg agrees in the sense that it can be a trippy movie, but this is only the case when people are given very little information. In particular, he said,

“People were splitting hairs over the marketing materials of a thing and trying to reverse engineer what the meaning was behind it.”

It seems like Stalberg did not have extensive knowledge on cryptocurrencies before working on this project. He supposedly came across articles related to this matter when the script was introduced. Upon research, what started off as the formation of a basic idea led the director to dig deep into matters.

Initially, Stalberg shared that the title of the movie was “Return”, but he deemed it as being boring and hence suggested “Crypto”. The main reason in doing so is because of the central character’s lost nature, in the sense that:

“He’s trying to solve the puzzle of this world he gets inserted into […] He has to figure out who he is and how he fits in with this family.”

Stalberg also explained that “Crypto” would be symbolic because the crypto world is one that many in today’s society are struggling to adapt to and to fully understand.

Most of Stalberg’s knowledge comes from the producer, David Frigerio, who supposedly enjoys “building mining machines.”

He also served as the “crypto advisor” throughout the making of the film. In fact, it was Frigerio who introduced Stalberg to Coinbase. This turn of events led the director to fall for blockchain technology, as he shares, “Wow, that’s an incredible contrast to the small town, Old World way.”

Skeptics and Naysayers Here’s What Stalberg has to say …

“Reserve judgement. Watch the movie.” He argued that the nature of trailers are mostly for commercial purposes and that while it may be confusing at first, actually watching what’s to come will give everyone a complete picture. According to Stalberg,

“People were saying, ‘Well, what about this one freeze-frame [in the trailer], where there’s a “Kickbacks” folder, and this and that?’ And they were completely taking it out of context.”

The director further argued that the trailer didn’t exhibit enough information for consumers to arrive to a sound confusion and that people were “pulling their hairs out” for no particular reason.

When asked if Stalberg had anything else he would prefer to share regarding the film, he said that the purpose was to still give consumers a relaxing cinema experience, and that the inclusion of crypto would serve as a “story thread and also a theme and a metaphor.”

He also encourages feedback, but according to him any feedback that comes before watching the movie in complete is pointless because of the same reason that there’s just not enough information for someone to be judgemental.

Review on “Crypto”

David Gerard recently shared his viewpoint on Stalberg’s movie, “Crypto”. Jumping straight to the crypto portion of the review, Gerard noted that “actual cryptocurrencies barely feature,” adding that, “the main money laundering isn’t happening via cryptos at all.”

Next, he went to point out a scene involving a Bitcoin ATM, which he deems “technically inaccurate, but socially spot-on.” In particular, the scene showed an individual accidently trying to pull out money out of the Bitcoin ATM belonging to a character named Earl, the main character, Marty’s high school friend.

One thing Gerard found hilarious was Earl’s attempt into convincing Marty into cryptocurrencies. He quoted an example of a conversation, which went as follows:

Marty: “Do you really believe this shit, or are you just bored out of your mind?”

Earl: “Are those two things mutually exclusive?”

Here are other concerns and tap on the back that has been expressed in terms of the different aspects of the movie:

• Slow pacing of the movie: plot kicks in after more than 50% of the movie
• Soundtrack has been overdone
• Financial aspects are unclear
• Spot on cinematography
• Overly processed dialogues

Overall Gerard rates it a 3.5/5 and it seems like most credit is given to the actors, Kurt Russell, Beau Knapp, Alexis Bledel and Jeremie Harris, all of whom did a great job portraying a dry and “mediocre story”.

This is interesting to hear, considering that none of the actors involved have the slightly knowledge on cryptocurrencies, besides their existence and how much it has reached as per the movie director.