Why Cannes Film Festival Deal-Making Will Be Different This

As U.S. and worldwide movie followers are heading again to Boulevard de La Croisette for the in-person 2021 Cannes Film Festival, the competition itself appears to be considerably completely different this 12 months to movie consumers and sellers.

According to a number of gross sales brokers, a lot of the gross sales for movies occurred within the weeks main as much as the competition on the Marche Du Film, the competition’s market that came about “pre-screening” this 12 months in a digital format attributable to all of the COVID-related delays. As a outcome, the in-person competition beginning this week might be extra of a networking occasion for individuals to promote scripts, packages and movies in postproduction and for expertise who may need to discover trade gamers to collaborate with on future tasks. 

“The English language films playing in the festival are rarely for sale, so during the festival, we used the opportunity to set up new projects, like selling films that were in post off of a promo, or a script that was packaged with key talent that you could find distributors for,” Endeavor Content’s Deborah McIntosh informed TheWrap. “I’m sure people will be doing business like this, but there just won’t be as much.”

While the Cannes movie market will nonetheless be held in particular person in the course of the competition, the digital occasion final month implies that lots of the starriest movies and packages have already pre-sold. IFC snatched up three Cannes competitors titles forward of their premieres: Paul Verhoeven’s “Benedetta,” Jacques Audiard’s “Paris, 13th District” and Mia-Hansen-Love’s English-lange debut “Bergman Island.” The competition’s opening movie, “Annette,” starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, might be distributed by Amazon within the United States whereas UGC is distributing theatrically in France. MGM acquired Sean Penn’s “Flag Day” and Zoe Kravitz’s directorial debut “Pussy Island” final month, whereas Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers” went to Miramax for worldwide rights every week in the past.

Still, there are some tasks which are nonetheless awaiting offers. Packages and scripts on the market embrace “Love Child” starring Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz (CAA, WME, Cinetic), Garth Davis’ “Foe” (UTA, CAA), Todd Haynes’ “May December” starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore (UTA, CAA), “Everest” from Doug Liman starring Ewan McGregor (UTA), amongst others.

And whereas a lot of the movies screening on the competition have distribution already (as in years previous), Charlotte Lichtman, an agent of International and Independent Film at ICM, mentioned this could possibly be an excellent alternative for choose worldwide movies which are nonetheless with no distributor to shine — with out having to compete with packages and tasks that aren’t within the competition. “It’s interesting because this is the first time we’ll have the in-person festival separate from the market,” she mentioned. “It’s new for everyone, but it feels like the festival titles will benefit from having some breathing room from the activity of the market.” 

Both brokers foresee some large offers for packages or movies in postproduction, and for each streamers and theatrical distributors. This is as a result of demand for content material has not diminished, and everybody desires a chunk of the pie. With theaters reopening after a 12 months (or extra) of closure, theatrical consumers and worldwide territories are hungry for content material. However, there’s solely a lot money these consumers can put up, whereas streamers have put up good capital at latest festivals — together with Apple’s record-breaking $25 million deal for “CODA” at January’s Sundance Film Festival, or Christian Bale’s “The Pale Blue Eye” promoting to Netflix for a reported $55 million at EFM in March.

Both Lichtman and McIntosh name {the marketplace} a “healthy one,” utilizing the pre-market gross sales as an indicator for individuals able to…