Berlin’s European Film Market ended with a bang.
Sony Pictures won a bidding war to take worldwide rights for Skeletons. The creature feature, about a young boy who discovers a disturbing secret about his mother’s true nature, stars Brie Larson and will be produced by JJ Abrams and directed by Strange Darling filmmaker JT Mollner (he also wrote the recent Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk).
Sony outbid fellow studios Warner Bros. and Paramount, as well as indie powerhouse Neon for the title, which FilmNation, CAA and WME were selling at EFM. The deal was reportedly pegged at $25 million plus for domestic rights alone.
It was the biggest reported deal, by far, out of EFM this year, which was otherwise quiet, though productive, according to sales and acquisition execs. The bulk of business, as always for Berlin, was in international pre-buys — Neon picked up Clarissa, the new feature from twin filmmakers’ Arie and Chuko Esiri (This Is My Desire), which stars Sophie Okonedo, David Oyelowo, and Ayo Edebiri, and is billed as a modern, Nigerian-set take on Virginia Woolf’s classic novel Mrs. Dalloway, also snatching up international sales rights for the title.
But there were also few domestic pick-ups, including of Sundance hit Josephine, a psychological family drama starring Channing Tatum, Gemma Chan and newcomer Mason Reeves, which new domestic distributor Sumerian Pictures acquired in a competitive seven-figure deal.
The Berlin boom days, when multiple $100 million plus projects sold out worldwide within the first few days of the market, are ancient history. But after years of contraction, shrinking pre-sales and skittish buyers, there was a sense at EFM, a cautious, qualified sense, that the worst may be over.
“We’ve hit rock bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up,” quipped one major European buyer.
The packages on offer in Berlin were smaller, with lower star wattage and tighter budgets and cheap horror titles were predominant. But there are signs of life — particularly from the U.S., where a new crop of independent distributors — Black Bear, Row K, Subtext — is stepping into the void left by studio retrenchment and the upscaling of indie heavyweights Neon and A24.
“A year ago [U.S. distribution] was feeling pretty, pretty tough,” says Zach Glueck, co-CEO of Manifest Pictures, the new U.S. sales outfit he launched in January together with Yvette Zhuang. “But just the fact that we have so many recent entries into the space, you have to hope they are identifying a gap in the market. We’ll see how the releases go, but it’s good to see froth in that space, hopefully their success can drive their competitors to have to be more aggressive to pick up films and release films.”
International, however, is where the real money is. The global theatrical business has recovered faster, post-COVID, than the domestic market, and in most major international territories, there is still healthy competition, with multiple large and mid-sized buyers able to bid on buzz titles.
“Over the last couple of years in the independent space, international has been the bedrock of getting independent cinema greenlit,” notes Glueck. “It’s put a tremendous amount of weight on the international markets and the international buyers to get these films off the ground.”
Glueck says the sweet spot is clear: “The kind of middle lane of films that we want to be identifying are strong genre pieces with a good hook, but that really have a core genre element that can be very easily understood and very easily marketed to a global audience. So — romances, action thrillers, erotic thrillers. Buyers are really looking for a big, broad comedy with stars. There’s a real value to finding directors or creatives with a track record, especially for pre-buying.”
But making indie movies is not getting any easier. Streamers and pay-TV outlets are buying less, and paying less, for movies, removing a comfortable backstop that allowed distributors to take bigger risks, safe in the knowledge they could make their money back on ancillaries.
“It’s become harder for the mid-market movies, the pre-sales, on average, have dropped significantly. The bottom has dropped out,” says Maximilian Leo of German production group Augenschein, whose feature The Weight, starring Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe, premiered out of competition in Berlin.
To fill the gap, producers are leaning harder than ever on public support. “In this market, state subsidies and soft money have become more important to get films made,” notes Leo.
Adds Manifest Pictures Co-CEO Yvette Zhuang: “Nowadays, pretty much every single project relies on tax credits or incentives from a state or country to meet its budget.”
A handful of bigger titles did cut through in Berlin.
In addition to Skeletons, there was major buzz around Mister, an action comedy from Black Bear and CAA Media Finance starring Walton Goggins and Chloë Grace Moretz, marking the directorial debut of stunt and second unit veteran Wade Eastwood (Mission: Impossible – Fallout). A24 rose about the horror crowd with October, a Halloween-set action horror from Rebel Ridge and Green Room filmmaker Jeremy Saulnier starring Cory Michael Smith, Chase Sui Wonders and Sophie Wilde. And 193 launched sales on Hello & Paris, a rom-com pairing Javier Bardem and Kate Hudson for director Elizabeth Chomko.
Outside the U.S., local-language films continue to underpin the ecosystem, making distributors less reliant on American titles. The biggest non-studio movies in Europe last year were local-language comedies, including the Italian hit Buen Camino, which grossed $90 million domestically, and Germany’s Western spoof Manitou’s Canoe with a $57 million local haul.
“We are seeing a really active European market, strong European films are doing very well,” says Andrea Scrosati, group COO and CEO Continental Europe for Fremantle, which owns several boutique European production companies, including Ireland’s Element Pictures (Bugonia, Pillion), and Italy’s Wildside (Conclave, After the Hunt) and The Apartment (Challengers, Berlin competition title Rosebush Pruning).
Those local successes don’t necessarily translate internationally, but they stabilize national industries and sustain buyer confidence.
In Berlin this year, that confidence was present, if fragile. Sellers report cautious buyers taking ever longer to do deals, waiting to see footage, or a finished film, before committing. Or waiting for festival reviews and audience reaction before signing. But the existential crisis that rocked the indie business over the past few years appears to be over. The new normal might not be tentpole titles and 9-figure sales, but it’s a living.
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