Delivery deals that make headlines in sundance film festival It can feel like an engagement announcement (“The Big Sick” marries Amazon Studios for $12 million!)). These deals mean the world to everyone involved: filmmakers, actors, producers, distributors, agents, and everyone’s mothers. But even if you’re a critic like me, watching the action from the sidelines, it’s easy to invest in the drama of watching deals happen. It can feel like watching you do it, like the first draft of an awards race, or like a Cinderella story. Which films are invited to the ball?
The happy ending you crave is when the movie you love finds the right home. Magnolia Pictures was a perfect example of this), or the big studios that fund dramas that have the potential to be popular.When a movie fetches a staggering amount of money, the company that bought it gets a lot of money. invested — that the movie comes out there, that it has its shot. The story of Sundance Cinderella can be traced back to titles like Reservoir Dogs (pictured after the 1992 version of Sundance by Miramax, perhaps one of the deals that changed the history of cinema), ‘Hustle & Flow’, ‘Napoleon Dynamite’, ‘Precious’, ‘Once’, ‘Beasts of the Southern Wild’, ‘Little Miss Sunshine’, ‘Fruitvale Station’, ‘CODA’.
But not all big deals are created equal. Todd Field, writer and director of “Tar,” recently charming story When his first film, In the Bedroom, was picked up by Miramax at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001, many filmmakers might have thought they had won the lottery, but Field was in the bathroom. I cried. He knew his film was a delicate flower and was sure Harvey “Scissorhands” Weinstein would ruin it by recutting it. Tom Cruise, whom Field met while filming “Eyes Wide Shut,” gave him (very shrewd) advice on how to avoid that fate. Ultimately, “In the Bedroom” was released to the audience in a version produced by Field. But his story is still a parable, showing that even headline-making deals at Sundance have as big drawbacks as advantages.
And that’s exactly what happened this year. The two biggest deals made at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival were both about triumphant purchases of films I thought were great.fair playA sexy, engaging, painstaking financial drama that has a lot to say about the post-#MeToo world, and a “Flora and son, is the latest and very engaging lo-fi musical bauble from director John Carney (“Once”) featuring a star-making performance by Eve Hewson. “Fair Play” played to an ecstatic early screening with several hungry distributors touring, and he was eventually sold to Netflix for $20 million. “Flora and Son,” which also generated a rapturous response, was acquired by Apple for his nearly $20 million.
Can you see a pattern here?
Both films won the Sundance lottery, guess what? Both films were picked up on streaming services and will likely never hit theaters. my question is simple. What the heck are these deals? I would say that “Fair Play” and “Flora and Son” get a sizable audience for streaming. However, I think it’s more likely that both films won the distribution battle but lost the war.
Ok, I can almost hear you saying that argument is based on outdated thinking. Streaming services are a major part of the present and an even bigger part of the future.they are not automatic badTwo years ago, “CODA” was acquired by Apple at Sundance for $25 million. It won an Oscar for Best Picture. The movie not only went to the ball, but also married Prince Charming.
But “CODA,” thanks to its paradigm-shattering Academy Award win, is a great example of the phenomenon I’m talking about. main supporter It was the movie’s work at Sundance and I was happy to see it win the Oscar. Outside of award races, people rarely talk about “CODA.” how many people have seen it? were they enthusiastic? To this day, I have no idea.
Meanwhile, all the movies vying for best picture this year have been widely talked about. But even “Tár”, which was infamously underperforming at the box office (it’s now edging towards grossing just $6 million), was one of the year’s most talked-about movies. . They used to say that the first Velvet Underground album only sold 100,000 copies, but everyone who bought it started a band. Everyone was talking about it. That’s how movies work. But imagine that “Tár” was only shown on streaming services. It would still be a great work of art, but no one would talk about it. they are buzz killers.
The purchase of Fair Play and Flora and Son from the Sundance Film Festival is, in both cases, grounded in a fantastical, and to me rather tragic, irony. audience movieThere is no other way to put it. “Fair Play” isn’t an erotic potboiler like Adrian Lyne’s Mercenary, but it’s a vibrant drama about corporate culture and the high anxiety that swirls right under the shifting modern sexual dynamics. This is a movie about men and women who love and compete with movies like Promising Young Women in a new way (should have been firecrackers in theaters). What is happening on screen and what is happening in our lives. And “Flora and Her Son” is a bittersweet and bold musical. Momentarily, it brings the audience into a collective swoon. At least when there is an audience.
I’m not saying you can’t and won’t enjoy these movies at home. The whole theater vs. streaming debate can sound silly at times. It’s true that I’ve been watching relatively recent movies at home since the early 1980s. It’s not a novel concept.
What isn’t getting enough commentary, however, is that when the film streams directly, it can sometimes feel as if it’s disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle. Many believe Disney did self-harm to the Pixar brand when it released “Turning Red” on streaming.A Pixar movie has always been an event. However, the company has reduced “Turning Red” to just another product you can see at home this week.
And Netflix is now in a position to really fight Against theater success. When “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” hit theaters, he allegedly made $15 million in its opening weekend. However, the streamer limited the release to a one-week window, which led to a ton of media analysis as to how much Netflix left on the table — it could have been $1 million. Or maybe more. However, the company is not stupid. Netflix left all that money on the table because Netflix leader Ted Sarandos didn’t I want “Glass Onion” makes $100 million in theaters. If so, it would be the worst publicity for his business plan. It’s all about keeping everyone at home, even when the movie they’re watching is practically asking for an audience, like the “Knives Out” movie. And you’re brave new world. That’s, in a way, why Netflix bought “Fair Play.” In fact, they paid him $20 million to take the hottest movie off the market at the Sundance Film Festival.
It may sound like it ignores the difficult economic realities of independent cinema. Even distributors interested in “fair play” were reportedly unnerved by the poor performance of indie films last fall. The huge advertising budget needed to give the film a chance. I understand those arguments. But the trend of underperforming adult high-end dramas cannot be turned into an automatic death sentence for these films, or an exile to Siberia for streaming. Do not turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Sundance Film Festival has become a symbol of independence, adventurism and audience synergy. Call it the Holy Trinity. The audience at home is still the audience, but it’s the disempowered audience that weakens the film itself. The deal made with “Fair Play” and “Flora and Son” made the film look like a very big fish. But if the end result of these trades is to shrink the pond, what good is that?