This year's Cannes lean on deals
'Lovers,' 'Synecdoche' still for sale
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Sony Classics is known for being bullish on foreign-language fare, and has bought two or three films out of Cannes annually. Last year, Bernard and Barker bought "The Counterfeiters" and "The Band's Visit."
"I'm trying to find a year when we left without buying a film," Barker said. "If we ever did it was a long time ago. There are no gems in the market."
They're not the exception. Among American studio specialty arms and indie distribs, this year's fest has been notably lean on deal-making.
Despite plenty of advance buzz, James Gray's "Two Lovers" and Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche, New York," are still up for sale.
The most anticipated film of the fest, Steven Soderbergh's Che Guevara companion films, "The Argentine" and "Guerilla," did not play until Wednesday night. Every acquisition exec, and in some cases their bosses, planned to attend the Che screening. For them, Soderbergh is too good a director to ignore. But the thought of marketing two Spanish-language films that run more than four hours combined is a daunting one. To boot, the two movies cost $61.5 million to produce, meaning it could cost $8 million to $10 million to acquire North American distribution rights. That's a major investment.
"It's a big bite," said another studio specialty distrib. "You have two films in a foreign language. But it's a great filmmaker, so everyone will want to see it."
The Che pair epitomizes the dilemma studio specialty arms and indie distribs are finding themselves in.
The specialty box office took quite a bruising last fall, with one drama after another failing to spark with auds. An abundance of pictures also is a big part of the problem.
"There are too many distributors," said Universal Pictures co-prexy David Linde.
All of this means that acquisition execs don't have the same freedom -- and coin -- they once did when coming to festivals and film markets. In today's climate, there's no room for risk. Cannes is not as big an acquisition mart as the Sundance and Toronto fests, but this year has been even lighter than usual.
"It felt really lackluster in terms of acquisitions. I think there have been some really beautiful films, but none of them are particularly suited to us. It's really, really hard in such a cluttered marketplace," said one specialty arm acquisitions topper.
U.S. specialty distribs are betting that someone among them will buy "Two Lovers," although Fox Searchlight, Miramax and Paramount Vantage are said to have already passed.
Distribs said "Two Lovers," starring Joaquin Phoenix as a man in love with two beautiful women, played by Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw, felt small. 2929 entertainment and Wild Bunch are looking for $2 million-$3 million for North American rights, depending on the P&A commitment and participation. Four or five interested buyers are concerned about the film's potential audience; it will likely need a slow fall fest word-of-mouth build, which can be expensive.
"People like to go to good compelling entertaining dramas," Barker said.
With not much to set buyers on fire in the official selection, buyers execs are checking out advance footage in the market, visiting sellers like Wild Bunch (Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler" stars Mickey Rourke as a has-been fighter reuniting with his abandoned family, and Jaco Van Dormael's fractured narrative "Mr. Nobody" stars Rhys Ifans and Jared Leto) and Odyssey (Lone Scherfig's mother-daughter drama "An Education").
Agnes Jaoui's intimate "Look at Me" is another film in the market stirring up some buyer interest. "There are some interesting foreign-language films," Bernard said. "But you have to feel confident that a picture will work theatrically. There are no classical French period pieces like 'Cyrano de Bergerac,' or things that will translate to the twentysomethings."
Bernard noted that the pattern of selling has more filmmakers going through traditional sales agents rather than agents engaged in Sundance-style auctions, which empowers the filmmaker. Indeed John Sloss, of Cinetic Media brought fewer films to sell at this fest.
