Rowan Atkinson boards the bandwagon... but is the market running out of steam?

He isn't the most savvy of characters - but Mr Bean is boarding the NFT bandwagon.

Rowan Atkinson is set to profit from the sale of 3,333 tokens showing ownership of digital artwork featuring the animated version of his hapless creation. 

The character is already a huge success online, with 15 billion views on YouTube and  129 million Facebook fans.

Tom Beattie, Mr Bean’s executive producer, told The Times: 'To marry NFTs and Mr Bean is a no-brainer. Mr Bean lives in a digital world, and people don’t kind of realise that. This NFT feels like quite a natural step for us.'

Atkinson told the paper: 'Any initiative which not only draws attention to but actually enables access to the fabulous artwork associated with the Mr Bean animation series, I welcome with open arms.'

Mr Bean's co-creator  Richard Curtis is also reported to have signed off on the idea.

The NFTs (non-fungible tokens) will go on sale via The Avenue  on May 25.

However, the timing might not be perfect. Sales of NFTs   have fallen 92 per cent since September, according to new data from experts at the website NonFungible,  quoted in the Wall Street Journal this week.

Last month  an NFT of Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s first tweet, which was originally bought for $2.9 million last year,  attracted a top bid of just $6,800.

Published: 7 May 2022