It's Hollywood's version of the saddest orphanage imaginable: More than a hundred precious newborns looking for a loving home. Only a dozen and a half will be lucky enough to find one, with fewer adoptive parents now showing up.
The Sundance Film Festival, which starts tonight, represents many things to many people -- a bold collection of arty movies for cineastes, a free-flowing booze binge for party animals -- but at its core Sundance stands apart as the nation's most important market for films made outside the studio system.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday, January 16, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 31 words Type of Material: Correction
Sundance Film Festival: An article in Thursday's Calendar section about Sundance being a buyer's market this year misspelled the last name of Overture Films' Chief Operating Officer Danny Rosett as Rosette.
Like everything else in the upside-down economy these days, though, the festival's sales dynamics are certain to be transformed this year, especially for the historic Sundance stronghold of documentary films.
"It's a scary time out there," says Jim Stern, a producer of "An Education," a coming-of-age drama considered one of the top films headed to Park City in search of a theatrical distributor. "I am concerned. But I also think there are going to be opportunities."
Several factors have scrambled pages in the 2009 Sundance script, making this year's 25th annual festival potentially more difficult for movies seeking a buyer.
First, several significant specialized film distributors either have closed their doors or are scaling back severely, including Warner Independent Pictures, Picturehouse, Paramount Vantage and the Weinstein Co. Second, some of the past Sundance buying stalwarts -- including Fox Searchlight, Focus Features and Lionsgate Films -- are producing more of their own movies, and buying fewer completed films from independent producers. Third, almost of all of last year's bigger Sundance sales, including "Hamlet 2," "American Teen" and "Choke," were box-office busts.
"Those [box-office] numbers didn't support the buying prices. So it will be a buyer's market," says Michael Schaefer, vice president of acquisitions for Summit Entertainment.
"I think the big movies won't get the big dollars this year," says Bob Berney, the former head of Picturehouse who is putting together a new distribution company for art-house films. "You can be very tough on your terms and on your deal points, which is the pendulum of the market right now."
Mark Urman, the distribution president for the newly formed Senator Entertainment, which will be shopping for potential pickups, similarly expects the scales to tip in the distributors' favor. "There are far fewer studio-owned specialty divisions," he says, "and that will have a beneficial effect for all concerned."
There's another complicating factor in this year's festival, which concludes Jan. 25 and will include the premieres of 118 feature-length dramas and documentaries. A number of the new, independently financed dramas were made under a provisional agreement with the Screen Actors Guild, whose previous pact with the studios expired half a year ago.
The specialized film units owned by the studios -- which include News Corp.'s Fox Searchlight and Disney's Miramax Films -- are concerned that if they buy a movie made under SAG's provisional deal with non-studio producers, the studios might be forced by SAG to adopt an interim agreement, which their parent companies did not negotiate.
Among the films apparently made under the provisional deal are the police drama "Brooklyn's Finest," Ashton Kutcher's gigolo story "Spread," and the Susan Sarandon-Pierce Brosnan grief drama "The Greatest," all considered top acquisition targets.
Although the rapidly evolving marketplace suggests the odds of a Sundance bidding war this year are slim, there also could be simultaneous downward pressure on the sales prices -- known in the industry as minimum guarantees -- for Sundance's smaller films, especially nonfiction films. Even the widely praised Sundance documentary "Man on Wire," for example, has grossed less than $3 million in its theatrical release, barely enough to cover many documentary films' typical acquisition and distribution costs.
"All movies have risk, but one of the ways to keep your risk down is to hold down the minimum guarantees," says Danny Rosette, the chief operating officer of Overture Films, which struck gold with its 2007 $1-million Toronto International Film Festival purchase "The Visitor" but found only rocks with its 2008 $4.5-million Sundance pickup "Henry Poole Is Here."
"There is still a lot of roadkill out there," Rosette says, "but you look at how Fox Searchlight has done with 'Slumdog Millionaire,' you know there's still a lot of business to be done."
Hollywood's sales agents are hoping that buyers remember that message when they begin peddling their slates in Park City, Utah.
