Everybody’s talking about how the WGA strike may affect this year’s Sundance marketplace (Variety and Scott Foundas among them), but studios looking to make up for a lack of in-house product with appealing-looking indies may want to think twice before opening the checkbook. It’s easy for buyers to forget that Hollywood still knows nothing about what moviegoers really want, and it’s very easy to waste a whole lot of money bidding on a film that isn’t going to be worth it’s purchase price. This week, the Onion’s A.V. Club features a list of Sundance flops — those movies that were a big deal at the festival yet failed at the box office. It’s probably meant to just be a fun look back at the errs of the marketplace, but really it functions as a warning to this year’s buyers. What they think is the next Napoleon Dynamite could really be the next Tao of Steve (which happens to have sparked a hilarious discussion in the comments section — possibly featuring Donal Logue himself). The Hollywood Reporter and David Carr in the New York Times add to the list by pointing out some of last year’s deals gone bad, specifically those for Joshua and Grace is Gone.

It’s not a matter of whether or not these films were good (I think Tadpole is great, actually) or whether not they could be enjoyed by regular folk (most of them were audience favorites at Sundance, and those audiences included regular folks). I don’t even think it’s a matter of whether or not the distributors knew how to market those films, though in some cases it didn’t even seem like they were trying. Instead it’s a matter of how different the context is at Sundance than it is in the real theatrical market. If you’ve ever been to a public screening at Sundance, you know how excited those regular folk audiences are for anything. You can tell by their praise-filled “questions” during the Q&As. You can tell by the fact that many of them aren’t seeing a lot of films — at least relatively, considering the number of films playing at the fest — and so don’t have good frames of reference.

But at least those regular folk are better representatives of the regular folk going to see movies in the real world. Perhaps they are better to listen to than the critics, who rave and buzz about stuff like Brick, which was kind of a neat idea but which had no appeal to a mainstream crowd. Yet still the critics may be better to listen to than the other industry folk, who typically know little about what the people want from a “Sundance movie” (yes, that brand means something different to regular folk than does a normal mainstream-type movie). Unfortunately, with everyone layered up in winter gear, it’s hard to tell what kind of person you’re overhearing championing this or that incredible movie (maybe its even a plant promoting said movie).

It might just be easier to ignore all the buzz and the bull and really think hard about the movie you might be interested in. Maybe instead of fighting over one movie that may or may not be the next big thing, scope out some other films that aren’t as high on the radar and see if it wouldn’t be too hard to turn them into the next big thing. Isn’t it more fun to feel like the one who discovered something than the one who moved in on something already discovered? I guess that’s too much work. But if you don’t seem too desperate, and you’re looking at a great film that doesn’t seem all that marketable, you may at least be able to snag something special at a low enough price. That sounds better than blowing your load on a Park-City-popular movie that could end up being this year’s biggest Sundance flop.