Usually one of the busiest bazaars for new movies made without studio financing, the Toronto festival now resembles the tail-spinning stock market: sellers far outnumber buyers. The result is that halfway through North America’s most important festival, only a handful of films have been acquired by U.S. distributors–and none for purchase prices exceeding even $1 million. Some blame a deficit of obviously commercial movies, and others say some of the best works–like Brazil’s “City of God,” directed by Fernando Meirelles, or Spain’s “Talk to Her,” directed by Pedro Almodovar–struck distribution deals well before the festival commenced. Other companies say exorbitant marketing costs and the anniversary of last year’s terror attacks (which stranded many executives here) have dampened their enthusiasm. A more plausible explanation, however, rests on the lessons learned at another prominent festival, when one sure-fire purchase bombed while a much riskier acquisition turned into a minor hit.
At January’s Sundance Film Festival, Miramax Films paid $5 million for the romantic comedy “Tadpole,” prevailing over Fine Line Features and Fox Searchlight in a spirited bidding war. While the film was made for less than $250,000, the steep bid seemed like a good investment: the festival audiences found the upbeat story of an April-December romance a hoot, and stars Sigourney Weaver and Bebe Neuwirth promised a bounty of free publicity. One rival distributor predicted “Tadpole” would gross at least $25 million at the multiplex. On the other side of the festival, Fox Searchlight paid $4.5 million for “The Good Girl,” a dark comedy about lonely people in a nowhere town. Although it starred Jennifer Aniston, the movie’s depressing themes weren’t found in any plot on “Friends.” One top distributor wouldn’t even bid on the film for that very reason, fearful the actress’s TV fans would reject it. Fox’s own internal projections suggested “The Good Girl” might gross some $8 million if the studio was lucky.
Turned out, Fox was much more than lucky. Released within weeks of each other, “The Good Girl” easily trounced “Tadpole.” Aniston’s movie could ultimately take in $15 million (an especially good return for an art-house movie with such a downbeat story line), while “Tadpole” looks doomed to gross no more than $3 million. As predicted, the “Friends” audience didn’t end up loving the movie, but it didn’t matter: Aniston enjoyed so much “Good Girl” publicity–her picture was on numerous magazine covers–and moviegoers of all stripes went to see what the fuss was about. “Tadpole,” on the other hand, didn’t get as much press, and the very thing Sundance audiences loved–a young boy’s affair with a much older woman–proved distasteful to much of the nation. Looking back at those two films and some other recent examples, executives at Toronto are reassessing the accepted wisdom about which films to buy. And that’s not necessarily a bad idea. Ever since “The Full Monty,” independent films have been held to unreasonably high financial hopes. Buyers gravitated toward presumed blockbusters, mostly comedies, while ignoring less commercial, but much more ambitious dramas. That kind of logic led Miramax to not only buy “Tadpole” this year but also spend even greater sums on “The Castle” (1997) and “Happy, Texas” (1999). At the other end of the spectrum, movies like “Memento” (2000) and “You Can Count on Me” (2000) barely got any attention at all when they were purchased. Yet those two latter films were smashes, while Miramax’s comedies were not.
Judging from what little selling has been done in Toronto this year, those lessons appear to be taking, if ever slowly. The pressure to buy something–anything–is enormous, but everyone is being very cautious. Lions Gate has bought “Irreversible,” a harrowing French story about rape and revenge that is certain to get an NC-17 rating. Miramax snapped up “The Magdalene Sisters,” a tough drama about an Irish convent that will definitely not get an endorsement from the Roman Catholic Church. And Newmarket has acquired “Spun,” a dark Mickey Rourke comedy about speed freaks. All three films were bought for less than $1 million. So far, there has been no $5 million sale.
Perhaps it’s better if there’s isn’t one. Because with restrained purse strings also comes restrained expectations, and that’s the only air in which independent film can live and breath.
