‘Fair Play’, ‘Plants and Boys’ Go to Netflix, Apple – The Hollywood Reporter
Yes, there were technical glitches, traffic jams and long lines to get into the parties across Main Street in the snow, but overall this year’s Sundance went smoothly and this includes including a return to face-to-face trading.
There were several sales announcements ahead of the film festival, including Netflix’s acquisition of the film Run rabbit runstarring Sarah Snook, and the doctor Deepest Breath, but the vast majority of narrative films entering the festival do not pre-screen to buyers, in the hope of creating a greater sense of urgency than it actually is. Limiting that urgency is the mixed nature of the festival, which means competing titles will appear on the online platform 24 hours after the live premiere. (An earlier version of the festival’s combined plan for sales agents and filmmakers had some features online only an hour after the live premiere before feedback was received.)
While the medium is as starry as the Anne Hathaway movie Eileen and features by Jonathan Majors dream magazine gaining buzz before the film festival, Sundance’s most sensational title proved to be pornographic thriller Fair play, led by upstart Phoebe Dynevor. The filmmakers had received numerous offers by the time the cast and crew sat down for dinner after the premiere. Neon, Searchlight, and Lionsgate were in the works, but the project landed on Netflix in a $20 million worldwide deal.
Apple continues to maintain its Sundance chain, accounting for Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Eve Hewson the main character plants and boys for a deal pegged at over $20 million, beating Amazon Studios for the John Carney-directed charmer. While it’s unclear if this will be the biggest carnival sale of 2023, it continues the tech giant’s annual trend of snagging the most anticipated (and often the brand) title. commercial) of the festival, bought Cha Cha is So Smooth for $15 million in 2022 and ultimately the winner of best movie CODA for $25 million in 2021.
With adult dramas struggling at the box office, Sundance’s sales including theatrical went to great titles, like Searchlight Pictures acquiring the worldwide rights to theater camp, a music-focused simulation, for $8 million. Interestingly, documentaries, which are often among the hottest at Sundance, still haven’t sold well until the last days of the festival, but distributors are said to be actively watching. all available films, looking for a potential 2024 Oscar contender — three of the five nominated for this year’s top documentary award were acquired from Sundance in 2022. On Tuesday Six, before the festival announced the awards, MTV Doc Films, headed by Shiela Nevins, landed Eternal memorysequel of the director behind the Oscar nomination mole agentas a playable prize.
After two days of sales announcements, festivalgoers began returning to Los Angeles with only a handful of nominated titles, but this was expected as sales continued to decline. longer and longer after the festival ends. So if you want to know how to expand the sales market in Sundance, a sales agent said, “Talk to me in six months.”
A version of this story first appeared in the January 27 issue of The Hollywood Reporter. Click here to sign up
