LOS ANGELES • At Sundance Film Festival, the Utah film festival known for launching the careers of unknown film-makers such as Quentin Tarantino, corporations are stealing the show this year.
Among the hot tickets were a Netflix documentary about pop star Taylor Swift and a four-part Hulu series about former United States secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
Many other hotly anticipated pictures were snapped up by streaming services before they were submitted to Sundance or just before the festival started.
Hulu and indie distributor Neon said on Monday they made the priciest film purchase ever in Sundance history.
The pair paid US$17.5 million and 69 cents (S$24 million) for Palm Springs, a movie about a couple who wreak havoc at a wedding. That edged out the record set in 2016 by The Birth Of A Nation by less than US$1.
That streaming services are cornering the indie film and documentary markets is a sign of the times.
Viewers are continuing to migrate away from linear TV and theatres, opting instead to enjoy new shows and movies at the time of their choosing and in the privacy of their homes.
The frenzy has given documentaries newfound cachet.
"Documentaries have never really had distribution before – you'd have to go to a speciality movie theatre," said Mr Bryn Mooser, chief executive of production company XTR and co-producer of Mucho Mucho Amor, a film bought by Netflix. "Now, when you turn on Netflix or Hulu, a documentary is literally on the tile next to Avengers."
The 42-year-old Sundance, the largest independent-film festival in the US, is both a showcase and market for new movies.
Pictures compete in a variety of categories while studios and independent distributors – and, more recently, streaming services – shop for programming to fill their pipelines.
At one packed event, film mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg presented his new streaming service, Quibi.
The company, which is run by former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Meg Whitman and backed by several media giants, is targeting smartphone users who want to watch shows with a running time of fewer than 10 minutes.
Quibi does not plan to own its content, meaning suppliers will be free to re-market their programmes.
Writer, actress and producer Lena Waithe made a documentary about sneakers for Quibi that plays in roughly six-minute instalments. She could combine those into a feature-length film and sell it to another platform.
"I love getting paid for the same thing twice," she said at the event.
The continuing presence of tech and streaming cash eased worries that the Sundance market would be soft this year.
Last year, Amazon.com spent about US$40 million on four feature films, including Late Night and Brittany Runs A Marathon.
None of them were big moneymakers at the box office, sparking fears that big chequebooks would stay away from the festival.Read More – Source
LOS ANGELES • At Sundance Film Festival, the Utah film festival known for launching the careers of unknown film-makers such as Quentin Tarantino, corporations are stealing the show this year.
Among the hot tickets were a Netflix documentary about pop star Taylor Swift and a four-part Hulu series about former United States secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
Many other hotly anticipated pictures were snapped up by streaming services before they were submitted to Sundance or just before the festival started.
Hulu and indie distributor Neon said on Monday they made the priciest film purchase ever in Sundance history.
The pair paid US$17.5 million and 69 cents (S$24 million) for Palm Springs, a movie about a couple who wreak havoc at a wedding. That edged out the record set in 2016 by The Birth Of A Nation by less than US$1.
That streaming services are cornering the indie film and documentary markets is a sign of the times.
Viewers are continuing to migrate away from linear TV and theatres, opting instead to enjoy new shows and movies at the time of their choosing and in the privacy of their homes.
The frenzy has given documentaries newfound cachet.
"Documentaries have never really had distribution before – you'd have to go to a speciality movie theatre," said Mr Bryn Mooser, chief executive of production company XTR and co-producer of Mucho Mucho Amor, a film bought by Netflix. "Now, when you turn on Netflix or Hulu, a documentary is literally on the tile next to Avengers."
The 42-year-old Sundance, the largest independent-film festival in the US, is both a showcase and market for new movies.
Pictures compete in a variety of categories while studios and independent distributors – and, more recently, streaming services – shop for programming to fill their pipelines.
At one packed event, film mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg presented his new streaming service, Quibi.
The company, which is run by former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Meg Whitman and backed by several media giants, is targeting smartphone users who want to watch shows with a running time of fewer than 10 minutes.
Quibi does not plan to own its content, meaning suppliers will be free to re-market their programmes.
Writer, actress and producer Lena Waithe made a documentary about sneakers for Quibi that plays in roughly six-minute instalments. She could combine those into a feature-length film and sell it to another platform.
"I love getting paid for the same thing twice," she said at the event.
The continuing presence of tech and streaming cash eased worries that the Sundance market would be soft this year.
Last year, Amazon.com spent about US$40 million on four feature films, including Late Night and Brittany Runs A Marathon.
None of them were big moneymakers at the box office, sparking fears that big chequebooks would stay away from the festival.Read More – Source
