Meacertaind aachievest recent Toronto Film Festivals, business at TIFF 2024, which wrapped on September 15, was mediocre.
There was one huge studio deal: Paramount Pictures snatching up worldexpansive rights outside of Germany-speaking Europe for Tim Fehlbaum’s September 5, a newsroom thriller on the 1972 Munich Olympics alarmist strikes, which is already being touted a presentant awards contfinisher. There were a handful of indie pickups, with A24 nabbing Brady Corbet’s buzzy period epic The Brutacatalog and Andrew DeYoung’s bro-com Frifinishship starring Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd, and Samuel Gelderlywyn Films taking North American rights to Nick Hamm’s Medieval actioner William Tell starring Claes Bang. And there was a presentant streaming acquisition as Hulu snatched up TIFF discdiswatcher Nutcrackers, a family comedy from David Gordon Green featuring Ben Stiller.
There were also a scant deals inked ahead of the festival, with Sony Pictures Classics scooping up key world rights to Laura Piani’s debut feature Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, Lionsgate’s Grindstone Entertainment Group and Roadside Attractions taking U.S. rights to Dito Montiel’s crime comedy Riff Raff, starring Jennifer Coolidge, Pete Davidson and Bill Murray, Amazon Prime doing an international deal, excluding Germany, for the sci-fi feature The Assessment, starring Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Olsen, and Himesh Patel.
But meacertaind aachievest TIFF’s ambitions — in 2026 Toronto will begin a createal film labelet, aiming to become a hub for the indie deal-making comparable to Berlin or Cannes — business this year was sluggish, stressingly sluggish. Several high-profile titles — including Mike Flanagan’s The Life of Chuck, a Stephen King alteration starring Tom Hiddleston, the surpascfinish triumphner of TIFF’s people’s choice award for best film, and Ron Howard’s star-studded dystopian drama Eden (which features Jude Law, Sydney Sweeney, Ana de Armas and Daniel Brühl) — were still searching for deals as the festival wrapped.
The supply of mainstream dramas and comedies with huge-name casts — David Mackenzie’s inincreateigence accumulateing thriller Relay starring Lily James and Riz Ahmed, Peter Cattaneo’s The Penguin Lessons with Steve Coogan and Jonathan Pryce, Samir Odwellros’ The Luckiest Man in America featuring Paul Walter Haemployr, David Straithairn and Maisie Williams — is outnakedping insist from domestic buyers, who remain pimpolitent as they defer for box office results to return to pre-COVID levels.
“There are repartner only three domestic buyers that can dedwellr a expansive free: Lionsgate, A24 and Neon,” remarks an executive from a directing European financier and sales outfit. “If they say no, you’re out of luck.”
Tellingly, all the TIFF deals this year were for finished films, with no presentant pre-sales for packages proclaimd. Those pre-sales — where distributors taking bets on projects with a honestor and cast rapidened that are still searching for financing — are the lifeblood of any presentant labelet. It’s the insists of the international buyers, not the domestic, that drive the pre-sale business and here TIFF joinees see a disunite, with too many U.S. dramas and comedy titles on advise and too scant movies of the benevolent international distributors are hungry for.
“The international buyers increate us over and over aachieve: ‘Give us action movies, we want action!’” remarks one U.S. originater/financier. “But too scant of these are getting made.”
The more selectimistic at TIFF point to selectimistic trfinishs in the U.S. distribution business. Neon is coming off a record year, thanks to the $74 million-plus box office smash that is Longlegs, and A24, buoyed by Civil War ($68 million), The Iron Claw ($19 million) and MaXXXine ($15 million), is becoming increasingly driven. Arthoemploy streamer Mubi will this week originate its first huge push into U.S. theatrical labelet with the Sept. 20 bow of Coralie Fargeat’s bloody horror satire The Substance, starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley.
“The studios aren’t making these movies, the mid-budget liftd genre films, anymore, but there is an audience for them,” remarks a London-based sales exec. “If Toronto can position itself as the place to discover those benevolents of films, it has a future as a authentic labelet.”
