A year removed from the start of the WGA strike, we’re just starting to see what recovery looks like. It’s rough: TIFF and AFM were disappointing, and Berlin didn’t offer many appealing talent packages. Projects are taking a long time to come together, if they’re happening at all.
However, Cannes may offer a silver lining: The post-strike market may mean a decline in the annual onslaught of trade announcements for movie projects that go nowhere.
“There’s still a lag in the marketplace where stuff isn’t filming; that’s going to affect what’s going on in production right now,” said one domestic sales agent. “During the WGA strike, a lot of talent had taken a seat and said, ‘What is it we really want from the marketplace? We want a different kind of quality.’ You hear it a lot from actors: ‘We want better movies.’”
Of course, you can still find a random Nicolas Cage package on someone’s slate, but distributors and streamers no longer need content for its own sake. “We’re being very particular and being smart with the buyers that we’re taking on,” the domestic agent said. “You can’t just go out there with a traditional indie… unless there’s something different about it.”
Buyers now want unique movies that can break from the streaming algorithms. Specialty distributors we talked to still expressed hope that indie theatricals could see a slow recovery — but that will demand a different kind of movie.
“What I’ve seen is the market is pulling back from just product, the generic formula of pushing out a thriller. The market is recoiling from that,” said Brian Beckmann, CFO and COO of Arclight Films. “There’s a push for higher-caliber or elevated type of content. It can still be a thriller, but they want known talent or up-and-coming talent, as opposed to the usual characters.”
That means sales agents have had to get smarter in their approach to the Marché du Film. Movie packages don’t need one star; they need at least two or three. A slate of killer shark movies isn’t going to cut it; you need appeal for a range of buyers, including stuff that doesn’t depend on a streamer’s worldwide megadeal.
Sales agents recognize that without talent attached, any project that comes to the market to seek financing is a non-starter. They also must provide buyers with the assurance that movies will go into production on schedule.
“If you stay married to the idea of a formula and ‘This is how we’re going to get this film made with this, this, and this,’ there are very few packages that will tick all those boxes and be a must-have by everyone in the [indie] marketplace,” said Cornerstone co-president Mark Gooder. “The irony is if they arrive like that, they will be bought by those with the deepest pockets, so the indie distributor space is not fed by those anymore.”
This year’s slate of hot packages features a retro vampire movie from the “Mandy” director Panos Cosmatos with Kristen Stewart and Oscar Isaac; a historical drama of Anthony Hopkins playing composer Handel; a Robin Hood movie with Hugh Jackman and Jodie Comer, and new films from Simon Curtis, John Carney, John Lee Hancock, and more that have stacked casts and are ready to shoot.
Ready or in post are “Press Your Luck” with Paul Walter Hauser and “In the Hand of Dante” with Oscar Isaac and Gal Gadot.
There’s a fair share of caution around the potential for an IATSE strike to disrupt another year. One major agent said it absolutely could be an issue weighing on who buys what; an indie distributor told us they hadn’t even considered it, but also expected IATSE will come to an agreement with studios.
Others don’t share that optimism, but it might not matter so much; in the scheme of this market, it’s a different time horizon and packages bought today won’t be a factor on slates until next year.
“We never panicked over SAG or WGA,” said one distribution executive, “and we’re not also panicking over IATSE.”
For some, tighter times in television has been a boon for the film market. “There’s a marked retrenchment in the TV market,” said Andrew Lowe of Element Pictures, which comes to Cannes with distribution for “Kinds of Kindness” and “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl” but seeks a buyer for “September Says,” which will debut in Un Certain Regard.
“Nobody wants to commit budgets to anything, make decisions, lots of people are losing their jobs,” he said. “I think when you look at film, it’s just a bit more optimistic because you see more success stories. It’s still possible to find pockets of people who are interested in financing.”
There’s other good reasons for Cannes market optimism. Director’s Fortnight has a number of English-language titles, with animated films finding their way into Un Certain Regard or Critics’ Week rather than a special screening on the beach. Markets like Asia, China, and even Russia are showing signs of becoming buyers again.
Oscilloscope head of acquisitions Aaron Katz said some festival programmers tracked certain movies for years, only to see them delayed by the strikes. That shook up the Cannes lineup in interesting ways; for example, this year’s Official Selection contains fewer mainstay auteurs. Katz said that could mean Cannes could introduce more discoveries.
Some of the most obvious commercial plays (Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds of Kindness,” Sean Baker’s “Anora,” Paolo Sorrentino’s “Parthenope”) have already been scooped up. Cornerstone held back pre-screening Andrea Arnold’s “Bird” in hopes of building the most hype upon its Cannes competition launch. Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” wanted a domestic deal before going into the fest; that didn’t happen, but has now secured some key international buys. Ali Abbasi’s Donald Trump film “The Apprentice” or Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Perez” starring Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldana are also the subjects of buyer curiosity.
Last year, Cannes title “May December” went to Netflix in an $11 million deal and was immediately vaulted into the Oscar race. What buyers really want is another “Anatomy of a Fall,” which grossed $35 million worldwide after winning the Palme d’Or.
“There isn’t a standout yet,” said Allison Thompson, Gooder’s partner at Cornerstone “On paper the competition is relatively strong, but it’s so hard to judge if something is going to pop. It will demand that a film is the best version it can be of itself, and with that it needs a little bit of stardust, and distributors need to understand that.”
Additional reporting by Anne Thompson
