Conclusion of Cannes
When Cannes comes to an end, British sellers of buyers who generally react positively to projects that were very clear suggestions reported good business.
Reaction from Sellers
"If you have the right actors, the right director, the right pitch and the genre what it is and it is not between the cracks, there are a lot of activities," said Sarah Lebutsch, Senior Vice President of Sales and Distribution, Protagonist Pictures. Spencer Pollard, CEO of Kaleidoscope, reported on a robust activity on the documentary Strange journey: the story of Rocky horror. "It is firmly aimed at a certain audience and buyer and the public, and in many cases they love the IP, so this was a title that aroused a lot of interest," he said.
Challenges in the Market
Buyers from Germany and Eastern Europe were particularly active, but the United States was still a challenge due to the disappearance of its Pay 1 deals. There was also a downturn among French buyers who offer ambitious minimum guarantees with regard to the effects of reducing investments from the channel+. "Everyone all around the world hopes that the Pay 1 windows and buyers will open more-and we have to believe that these options will be used again in the course of the year," Pollard noticed.
Horror as a Safe Bet
Horror is still a safe bet. “Genre films can be made for one [reasonable] Price, there is no great burden on the costs, ”said Zygi Kamasa, founder and CEO of the British distributor True Brit, for whom horror was a decisive goal this year. "We were very active. We picked up two British films, rapture and the restart of Creep Present Crawl. Horror is a great business with theater that people want to go to the cinema in groups to see horror. The British horror has recently been underestimated. It is great that we have some British horrors on our plate."
Saturation in the Market
While horror remains a basic gods, a facilitation of saturation in the last major markets was obvious. "There was a lot of horror on the market, but the buyers said that it might have been a little less than Berlin and AFM, which was so horror," said the protagonist’s Lebutsch. "There was still a lot to do, but maybe a little less a focus overall."
Market Slowness
A general slowness of the market was found as a rash from the high prices that were asked in negotiations for Lionsgate’s The hunger games: sunrise on the harvest and The driver and The drama for A24. As a buyer, to see what happens to the Big Ticket projects, British sellers were waiting in the wings with their projects in the mid-budget area.
Changes in the Russian Market
There were also signs of Russia, previously an active territory for the sellers of Great Britain, not as hungry for indie tariff, as the relationship between the USA and Russia under Donald Trump’s presidency facilitates and possibly opened the possibilities for Hollywood films that Hollywood films in Russia were to be distributed for the first time since the outbreak of war against Ukraine in 2022.
