After a slow start, Sundance ends with big sales

Talk of the demise of the Sundance Film Festival as a breeding ground for crowd-pleasing independent films seems greatly exaggerated.

When the titles of this year's 40th anniversary festival failed to fly off the shelves by the third day of screenings, some observers saw it as yet another sign that Hollywood was in dire straits. The festival no longer showed independent films that could still be there commercially viablethat was the thought.

But as the festival wrapped up last weekend, it seemed the studios had found a number of films they were betting would appeal to moviegoers.

As has been the case in recent years, streaming services made the most notable deals. Netflix reportedly paid $17 million for the horror film “It's What's Inside” and Amazon/MGM bought “My Old Ass,” starring Aubrey Plaza, for $15 million. “Skywalkers: A Love Story,” a documentary about a Russian couple who save their marriage by climbing skyscrapers, was acquired by Netflix, while Warner Bros. Discovery, owner of the streaming service Max, is negotiating a $15 million sale for “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story,” a documentary about the “fall and rise” of the actor best known for his portrayal of Superman on big screen.

The traditional studios also participated. Reminiscent of Sundance's busiest days, a late-night bidding war ended when Searchlight Pictures acquired Jesse Eisenberg's “A Real Pain,” in which he stars opposite Kieran Culkin, for $10 million. Independent distributor Neon bought Steven Soderbergh's ghost story “Presence” for $5 million.

Deborah McIntosh, co-head of WME's independent film financing and sales group, said this year's market will likely be on par with 2023 in terms of sales volume.

“I think there's really a lot of stuff coming out now that the festival dust has settled that buyers are really excited about the films they can make money with,” she said in an interview. “Ultimately, film production is very strong, and I think the buying market has increased year over year and is hopefully back in a good place.”

The Sundance Film Festival has long been seen as a barometer of the health of the film industry. In the past year, after two strikes that shut down the company for nearly six months, film insiders hoped that a robust market would emerge in which a large number of films would be picked up and eventually made available to the public.

“My hope is that the one positive thing about the strike is that a lot of films that might have struggled wouldn't have to because there are so many holes in the release schedule,” producer Jason Blum said at a press conference at the start of the movie. of the festival. “I hope to see a number of Sundance films hitting theaters soon in the next six months.”

Yet all is not idyllic in the independent film market. Last week, Sundance hosted a three-hour summit that brought together 60 leaders from across the indie film spectrum – distributors, producers and sales agents – to brainstorm the issues facing the company. According to one attendee, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the event was off-limits to the media, the focus was mainly on how best to support emerging independent filmmakers, who often find themselves at the helm of some of Hollywood's -stars. greatest films. The main concern was that while films at Sundance continued to be purchased for larger sums, the smaller, multimillion-dollar purchases that used to represent the majority of sales are no longer as plentiful.

“We're well past the post-studio era, and it turns out we're well past the post-streaming era,” says Neon CEO Tom Quinn, referring to the go-go days when first studios and then streaming services often overpaid for talent and set excessively large budgets for films.

Still, he added that despite the market contraction, Sundance has remained stable.

“It's really interesting to see the consistency of Sundance,” he said, adding that certain films from this year's festival “could have been placed at Sundance 20 years ago and they would be as relevant then as they are today.” day, a certain timeless idea of ​​what independent filmmaking is, and that's really exciting.”