{"id":2062641,"date":"2025-10-01T18:17:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T18:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2062641"},"modified":"2025-10-01T18:17:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T18:17:08","slug":"jeffrey-katzenberg-talks-drone-company-nova-sky-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/jeffrey-katzenberg-talks-drone-company-nova-sky-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeffrey Katzenberg Talks Drone Company Nova Sky Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Kimbal Musk and Jeffrey Katzenberg are looking to turn their drone art company Nova Sky Stories into the next major form of live outdoor entertainment.<\/p>\n

During a panel at TheWrap\u2019s 2025 TheGrill conference<\/a>, Katzenberg said that while the first two pillars \u2014 sports and music \u2014 have become annual multi-billion dollar businesses, their venues aren\u2019t used year-round.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re empty 300 days out of 365. So the venues actually are there. We don\u2019t have to build theaters,\u201d Katzenberg explained. \u201cThe beauty of this is you pack these things up into two 18-wheelers and it takes four people to fly a show \u2026 The big opportunity here is to create what can be the third pillar of live outdoor entertainment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katzenberg and Musk are making this bet as drone shows have become an increasingly common sight, playing as a safer alternative to fireworks or after sporting events. Social feeds are filled with sophisticated images and even limited videos assembled thousands of flying devices. But they\u2019ve largely been side acts, while Nova Sky Stories intends to be the main event. <\/p>\n

In addition to producing original content, Nova Sky Stories is in talks with major studios including Disney, Universal, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount about adapting IP like \u201cShrek\u201d and \u201cHow To Train Your Dragon\u201d for storytelling in the sky. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think about the movie of Lion King, it was adapted to the stage. It is the same story, but it\u2019s told in a completely unique way that takes advantage of a theater,\u201d Katzenberg said. \u201cSo now, move that to the next place, which is take advantage of this giant cube and the sky and this new technology. How do you adapt that storytelling? So some of the best movies and best IP in Hollywood will be part of what Nova does.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really want this to be a storytelling medium,\u201d Musk added. \u201cJust like you\u2019d go to a musical on Broadway, you\u2019re having an experience and you\u2019re sharing with your family and friends and you\u2019re being moved emotionally. That\u2019s our goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A \u2018religious experience\u2019<\/h2>\n

In 2022, Musk acquired the drone technology from Intel, which was planning to shutter the project after working on it for 10 years (the chip company had notably deployed 250 drones for a show at the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas during CES in 2018). He got turned on to the drone technology after working with the artists behind Nova on a 3,000-drone show for the Burning Man festival.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe artists came to me that I was helping, mostly Burning Man artists, and they said, \u2018Intel\u2019s gonna shut this division down. Please help see if you can just talk them into not shutting it down,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI went to speak to them and they said, \u2018We either shut it down or you got to buy it from us.\u2019 And I was like, \u2018I never thought I\u2019d be buying a division from Intel \u2026 And it\u2019s been just an amazing journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

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An example of Nova Sky Stories drones creating images in the night sky. (Credit: Nova Sky Stories)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Katzenberg, who is an investor in the company through his firm WndrCo, recalled his \u201creligious experience\u201d of seeing Nova Sky Stories in person at Burning Man. He would reach out to Musk about five or six months later to collaborate. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn either 1989 or 1990 I saw this Pixar short film called Luxor the Lamp, it was the original piece that John Lasseter made. First, I tried to hire John Lasseter, that didn\u2019t work, then I tried to buy the company and that didn\u2019t work. And then we made the three-picture deal. And that moment of seeing that short film, which to me, was like, \u2018Oh my God, here is our future\u2019 \u2013 I had that same feeling when I saw this 10 minutes that Kimball did for us this last May,\u201d Katzenberg said. \u201cThat just started a conversation with us and I realized that what he is onto is actually a whole new platform, a new medium, a new stage for storytelling and the stage is the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Creating a viable business<\/h2>\n

Today, Nova Sky Stories is doing drone shows in 40 countries and on track to manufacture 12,000 drones by the end of 2025 and closer to 30,000 by the end of 2026. <\/p>\n

The company has received interest from Abu Dhabi for a 10,000-drone fleet, while Europe and the U.S. each have fleets of around 4,000 drones. At the same time, Nova sold 6,000 tickets for its drone shows in 2024 and hit 200,000 as of last weekend. <\/p>\n

Looking ahead, Musk and Katzenberg said they expect to sell around 500,000 tickets in Nova\u2019s first year. They\u2019ll also look at sponsorship opportunities to help make the business economically viable moving forward. <\/p>\n

\"Jeffrey
Jeffrey Katzenberg, Founding Partner, WndrCo and Kimbal Musk, CEO & Co-Founder, Nova Sky Stories attend 2025 TheGrill Dinner at Cipriani Beverly Hills on September 29, 2025, Los Angeles, Calif (Photo by Michael Kovac for TheWrap)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI think we really can fill those stadiums. And because it\u2019s digital art, you can really put so much human talent and resources into the content and at scale. So you can put tens of millions of dollars into a show. An adaptation of Shrek in the sky would take us a year or two,\u201d Musk said. \u201cAnother thing that\u2019s different about our stories is the technology keeps changing and the actual story changes as well. Once it\u2019s out there, it doesn\u2019t stop. It\u2019s not in the can, it constantly evolves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katzenberg predicted that, in the next 18 to 24 months, Nova Sky Stories would look similar to hand drawing as the technology advances.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople think about what is the most basic version of a drone with a little flashing light on it. And that\u2019s the first generation. We\u2019re already onto the second or third generation, and the fourth and fifth, which are in the works right now, and we\u2019ll start turning them out mid next year, allowing you to do all kinds of things that people have not really imagined yet,\u201d Katzenberg said. \u201cIt\u2019s just going to keep getting better. We\u2019re at the very beginning of a technology revolution in entertainment.\u201d <\/p>\n

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\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.thewrap.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kimbal Musk and Jeffrey Katzenberg are looking to turn their drone art company Nova Sky Stories into the next major form of live outdoor entertainment. During a panel at TheWrap\u2019s 2025 TheGrill conference, Katzenberg said that while the first two pillars \u2014 sports and music \u2014 have become annual multi-billion dollar businesses, their venues aren\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2062642,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[352252,352261,352253,384895,384896,342948],"class_list":["post-2062641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-drones","tag-freemium","tag-jeffrey-katzenberg","tag-kimbal-musk","tag-nova-sky-stories","tag-wrappro"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Jeffrey-Katzenberg-Talks-Drone-Company-Nova-Sky-Stories.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2062641"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2062643,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062641\/revisions\/2062643"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2062642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2062641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2062641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2062641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}