The Cannes 2024 market saw a thrilling revival with nine movies — including four movies in the main competition — selling to specialized distributors in domestic deals. However, this wasn’t exactly a return to business as normal: The buyers weren’t stalwarts like A24, or Focus, or IFC. Instead Mubi, Metrograph Pictures, and Sideshow (in partnership with Janus Films) established themselves as major buyers.
Mubi bought three titles in the main competition: “The Girl With the Needle,” “The Substance,” and added North American rights on Andrea Arnold’s “Bird.” (It came to the festival with UK rights.) “The Substance” starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley represents a major swing for the upstart, with one source placing the deal in the low-eight figures.
Sideshow picked up Indian drama “All We Imagine As Light” in the main competition, the animated “Flow” from Un Certain Regard, and “Misericordia” and Leos Carax’s “It’s Not Me,” each in Cannes Premieres. Metrograph picked up crime thriller “The Kingdom” and Indian procedural “Santosh,” both from Un Certain Regard. It also came to the fest with Sundance acquisition “Good One” playing in Director’s Fortnight.
Here, the declining market worked to the benefit of the new kids. While the box-office challenges might bring out the more conservative instincts of established companies, the lower prices inspire distributors that have something to improve. As one sales agent told IndieWire, most (though not all) of these titles are selling for smaller numbers, reducing the risk.
“There are several smart, talented companies going after this kind of movie, and I think it’s good for the movies, and it’s good for the ecosystem,” a distributor said. “Good people work on good projects.”
The distributor said it felt like an “old-school Cannes,” with different films of various sizes and scopes all receiving an equal level of hype and competition, with several inspiring multiple bidders.
Buyers like Sony Pictures Classics, Paramount, and Lionsgate were less active this year, as were the streamers. And while Neon and A24 each landed official selections, they also devoted more of their funds to pre-buys and packages on other hot market titles.
“There was a lot of movement, a lot of excitement,” the distributor said. “Companies were back buying things, people have aspirations. People are thinking about, ‘What does this year look like? What does next year look like? It felt healthy. There was no, ‘How do we get past the next three months?’”
Distributors also have a track record of spending money before they disappear, such as indie distributor Solstice Studios; it closed in 2022 as a Covid casualty after just a few years in business. However, there’s reason for these companies to believe they could stick around.
Mubi began as (and still is) a streamer, but moved into acquisitions when it acquired international sales company The Match Factory in 2022. The Match Factory continues to sell a broader selection of titles, including several that Mubi took for North America out of Cannes. With Mubi taking worldwide rights and making international pre-sales, it reduces the domestic risk. Mubi handled the domestic releases of “Decision to Leave,” “The Delinquents,” and “Fallen Leaves” and the international releases of “The Worst Person in the World,” “Priscilla,” and “Strange Way of Life.”
Metrograph Pictures began as an opportunity for its New York City movie theater to manage wider releases of repertory and restoration titles, but that changed when it scooped up “Good One” out of Sundance and “Meanwhile on Earth” out of Berlin. Backing the distributor is private equity as well as leader David Laub, formerly of Oscilloscope and more recently A24; he wants Metrograph to see as many as 10 releases a year.
Then there’s Sideshow, which quietly launched three years ago — so quietly, that it didn’t publicly acknowledge its principals for months. (They include former IFC Films head Jonathan Sehring and Criterion Collection CEO Jonathan Turell and its president Peter Becker.) Sideshow teamed with the venerable (founded 1956) Janus Films; the first release was Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car,” which received a Best Picture nomination and won the Oscar for Best International Feature. Since then, Sideshow and Janus scooped up Jerzy Skolimowski’s “EO,” documentary “All That Breathes,” Hamaguchi’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” Bertrand Bonello’s “The Beast” and Catherine Breillat’s “Last Summer.”
Putting an asterisk on all of this activity is Criterion and Janus Films’ recent sale to Steven Rales, founder of Indian Paintbrush — the film financier best known for backing the work of Wes Anderson. It’s unclear what this will mean for Sideshow, but the bonds between Sehring, Turell, and Becker are deep; as Sehring told Deadline, his first job out of college was with Janus. “I worked for their dads [William Becker and Saul Turell],” he said. “It’s almost like family to me, we have been friends and partners for so long.”
Whatever the configuration, it all looks like good news in an industry that could use it. “Knowing that other companies are interested in buying was a good thing, because the market’s healthy,” the distributor said. “If you’re the only one doing it, that’s not such a healthy market.”
