AFM ends hit, miss

Hoffman arrest, foreign deals highlight mart

By MARC GRASER

FROM THE AMERICAN FILM MARKET
The 19th American Film Market ended Thursday in Santa Monica, mirroring previous markets with mixed reviews and buyers leaving mostly empty-handed.

In fact, the event's most interesting highlights weren't even AFM-related: the arrest of Seven Arts Pictures prexy Peter Hoffman, and Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan's first confirmation that the city had secured the 2000 Democratic National Convention, both which happened Monday.

"It's kind of a tough market overall," said Ann Boehlke, who was shopping "The Scottish Tale" from Weststar. "But the spirit and energy this year was high and hopeful."

Compared with last year, fewer titles screened -- 358 total, with 215 market premieres -- but it was still the second-highest number in the market's history. Last year's market featured 393 titles, with 260 debuting.

Among this year's slate, Miramax's "Happy, Texas," Polygram's "The Match," Regent's "I'll Remember April" and North By Northwest's "Mel" attracted the largest audiences.

Although the lackluster market mirrored previous AFMs, smaller independent sellers with low-budget pics and larger distribs ended up inking the most deals with foreign buyers. It was the middle-range indies who were left holding their wares.

Lions Gate Intl., which made its second visit to AFM this year, sold distrib rights to 25 films, including "American Psycho" and Saturn Films' John Malkovich starrer "Shadow of the Vampire."

"For us, it went particularly well," said Joe Drake, prexy of Lions Gate Intl. "But it certainly takes more work than it used to."

Several trends, however, did emerge:

• Sellers are seeing AFM as a way to gauge the opinion of buyers and see which titles they are interested in before heading off to larger markets such as the Cannes Film Festival in May.

  "For us, AFM is the calm before the storm," said Julie Savay-Ross, veep of international sales for Initial Entertainment Group. "We're holding out theatrical titles to announce in Cannes."

  Similarly, Miramax chairman of worldwide distribution Rick Sands said he also did not intend to start signing foreign deals for "Scream 3" until Cannes.

  "We get in the shadows of American companies, because our films are more for arthouse theaters, whereas AFM is oriented more towards commercial types of films," said Anna Karin Strom, sales exec for Nordisk Film Intl. Sales.

  If there were sales, they were almost all to foreign buyers. Few titles, if any, were sold domestically.

• Available pics are becoming less schlocky, more high-profile and talent-driven, toplined by names including John Travolta ("Standing Room Only"), Bruce Willis ("Whole Nine Yards"), Wesley Snipes ("The Art of War"), Sigourney Weaver ("Company Man") and Robert De Niro.

  But even some of these titles drummed up little interest.

• Buyers are becoming more serious and choosy. Dealmaking continued into the final hours Thursday with sellers closing last-minute deals.

  "You have people who are spending a lot more time reading scripts and looking at the casting of the films," Drake said. "Buyers are being more careful and sellers are working really hard to put together packages that have a real shot at the box office."

  Adds Drake, "I think it was a very well-attended market. Across the territories, there was a very good group of buyers being very selective about their films. It was certainly down to the serious buyers."

  Agreed one market observer, "All the buyers were here who should have been. If they didn't buy anything, then it was because there wasn't good enough product."