How Will Sundance’s Virtual Festival Affect Film Sales?

For the first time in the 43-year history of the Sundance Film Festival, the event will take place virtually. We will hear no heavy breathing pacing up Main Street in Park City, Utah, to get to a screening on time, see no rush of talent and film fans heading into the Eccles for a premiere or long lines outside of restaurants for filmmaker parties. Perhaps the biggest question filmmakers, sellers and buyers will face is how a virtual festival will impact sales of projects. Not only will films screen without live audiences for distributors to gauge real-world reactions, there will be no more late-night meetings at sponsored lounges or private screenings at filmmaker’s cabins. Will sales take longer or go faster with acquisitions just a Zoom login away? In interviews with multiple sales agents, the expectation was set for a fast and aggressive sales market should a movie create enough buzz.

“If somebody actually likes a movie and wants to buy it and comes in aggressively, it could make (the acquisitions process) much faster,” one sales agent told TheWrap. “If you’re at Sundance in person, you need to schedule times for meeting with the acquisitions teams face-to-face in a hectic environment where everyone is running around. When those meetings finally happen, they can take three hours. Now, those discussions are more instantaneous since we can say, ‘Let’s get on a call with everyone on Zoom.’ The buyers and sales agents are solely focused on the market.”

ICM’s Oliver Wheeler agreed, adding that he anticipates more creative dealmaking given how the ongoing pandemic continues to loom over traditional theatrical releases. “You’ll see that the bigger, more competitive titles will move fast and then you’ll see a longer timeline for the smaller titles,” he said. “It’s part of our job, but one of the challenges in a virtual market is creating a sense of urgency, a competitive environment. It’s always going to be more difficult than having everyone in the same place at the same time. But we continue to find successful, creative, and innovative ways to get around the challenges, and we’re optimistic going into this year’s festival.” The festival itself has been coming up with creative ways to make the gathering special and to keep up buzz for the films although word-of-mouth will be limited to texts and Zoom calls. There are still appointed viewings with allocated tickets, so everyone will see the film at the same time, and the festival still planned panels that require sign-ups for a specific time. Buzz and competition might also be amplified given the 43% drop in the number of features included in this year’s festival compared to last year (from 128 to 73). However, last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, which also went virtual with a smaller slate of titles, saw unusually slow sales. While Netflix spent roughly $60 million on three films — “Malcolm & Marie” (which sold in just 24 hours), “Pieces of a Woman” and “Bruised” — and Solstice Studios acquired Mark Wahlberg’s “Joe Bell” for $20 million, some acquisition titles took months to hammer out deals. According to multiple agents, the slow process was a result of both sides needing to find an appropriate fit for each project — especially in the current environment. “We found our pacing in these markets and what is right with the film,” another agent selling films at Sundance said. “We’re not in a rush to close anything overnight, otherwise the pace of the deal will dictate the price. All of our Toronto sales took one or two weeks, some of them took a month. I’m not focused on timeline, but the buyers and the best deal for the project.” Still, the experience at previous virtual festivals like Toronto provides a roadmap for both buyers and sellers heading into Sundance. “We’ve settled in to a good rhythm at these virtual markets,” Endeavor Content’s SVP Film Advisory Deb McIntosh said.

This year’s Sundance is already moving full speed ahead, with several films announcing deals ahead of opening night. For example, Juno Films acquired “The Most Beautiful Boy in the World,” RLJE Entertainment bough the Nicolas Cage vehicle “Prisoners of the Ghostland,” and Ed Helms’ “Together Together” was bought by Bleecker Street in December. In fact, the pandemic has amplified the need for many companies to acquire projects outside the high-pressure festival and market environment. “Progressively in the last few years, this market has become a 365-day market, and more and more you see movies sold in between festivals,” Cinetic Media’s John Sloss said.  “The quarantine has just hastened that, so, yes, it doesn’t surprise me that films announced at Sundance were shown to buyers before Sundance, and it wouldn’t surprise me if films take a while to close if the market hasn’t reached its peak immediately after the screening.” Overall, Sloss said that Sundance continues to be the “best market for independent film by far,” whether it is virtual or in-person. “Sundance has historically itself been sort of conflicted about whether it sees itself as a market, but the market has been unambiguous,” he said. “We have not been super active in the virtual festivals up until now. We are leaning into Sundance as a selling market and we have worked very closely with them to craft the mechanism to optimize the experience from a seller/buyer standpoint in a virtual environment, and I think they’ve done a great job. We’re really excited about the prospects of the market.”