Nick Hornby | SpoutBlog

Sundance News 01/20/09: An Education is Too Expensive

By Christopher Campbell posted 10 months ago

A few films were sold in the past 24 hours, but Lone Sherfig’s An Education was not one of them. Reportedly, Fox Searchlight offered around $1 million for the Nick Hornby-scripted coming-of-age drama, yet the film’s co-reps CAA and Endeavor are asking closer to $10 million. As if any title could seriously expect that high an amount during the “subdued” Sundance of ‘09.
Oh, by the way, here’s another possible reason for slow sales this year that we missed yesterday: too many co-repped films make for confusing negotiations.
IFC Films held a press conference yesterday to reveal that, for the first time, the distributor will release a film to VOD day-and-date with its world premiere at this Spring’s SXSW. The film will be Joe Swanberg’s Alexander the Last, and it’s one of a bunch of new titles, including the latest from both Phillipe Garrel and Denys Arcand, slated for IFC’s Festival Direct VOD channel. Steven Soderbergh says that these days filmmakers’ have to “let go of the fantasy” of receiving conventional theatrical releases for their work.
Also from the IFC press conference: Karina asks about whether on demand data will ever be released a la box office figures; Swanberg tells festival directors that its up to them whether or not VOD kills festival runs; Soderbergh calls BluRay “the worst launch of a new format in the history of formats.”
And in other IFC VOD news, the NY Times got it wrong last week when it reported that IFC’s hoped-for 250,000 VOD viewers for Soderbergh’s Che would be the equivalent of an $18 million box office take. The figure, corrected during a Sundance panel discussion, would be more like $1.8 million.

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Festivals, Indies, Sundance 2009

Secret Michael Cera Movie Debuting at Sundance. Trade Roughage 11/26/08

By Christopher Campbell posted 12 months ago

The cat is out of the bag for Paper Hearts, a new movie starring Michael Cera about his real-life relationship with actress Charlyne Yi (Knocked Up). The part-doc, part-scripted comedy was apparently hoping to slip into the 2009 Sundance Film Festival completely under the radar in order to keep expectations in check. Now we’re all talking about it, and it’s sure to be one of the hottest tickets in Park City (as long as it’s indeed selected for the fest). Other titles expected to be named next week for the Sundance slate include the Ashton Kutcher starrer Spread, the Nick Hornby-scripted An Education and Antoine Fuqua’s Brooklyn’s Finest.
Following in his sister’s footsteps, Madonna bro Christopher Ciccone will make his feature directorial debut with a teen thriller titled Twist.
The Dardenne brothers have accepted the position as heads of Europa Distribution, a two-year-old collective of independent film distributors that acts as a lobby, think-tank and network for the European film industry.
In other European cinema news, due to the current economy, both the San Sebastian and CineKid film festivals are on the verge of going out of business.
This should have been the year everyone got a Blu-ray player for Christmas, but despite lowered prices, the current recession will likely still keep consumers from adopting the format.