Will fresh buyers spark a return to a tough deal flow at TIFF? | News

The theatrical space remains challenging. Few buyers have the wherewithal to compete with Hollywood majors and streamers, especially as platforms are said to be low-balling pay 1 and pay 2 licence fees that can facilitate theatrical distributors afford minimum guarantees and tough release commitments.

Yet there are grounds for cautious optimism. Resourceful distributors continue to adapt and board projects earlier in the lifecycle to better compete with deep-pocketed rivals.

Attention to downstream revenue can be lucrative, as seen when Neon’s multiple Oscar winner Anora earned eight figures after a $20m North American theatrical run.

And then there is perhaps the biggest sign of confidence – the arrival of two well-capitalised fresh players with stated theatrical ambitions in the form of Black Bear’s US distribution division and Row K. The word in Hollywood is that one or two others may be announced soon. For now, the hope is that the arrival of two significant sources of buying power will facilitate inspire a return to the kind of tough on-site deal flow TIFF used to enjoy.

That said, negotiations take longer to close these days, at all festivals and markets, and the quality of films on offer varies year-to-year. Sundance in particular was very sluggish, while American sellers have grumbled about the pace of business in Cannes. Even if a buyer makes a deal on the ground, a distribution calendar packed with studio and other independent fare might force it to hold back a release: Neon only opened its 2024 acquisition and TIFF audience winner The Life Of Chuck in June and it earned less than $7m.

Black Bear, Row K looking to fill fresh pipelines

Everyone in Toronto will be waiting to see if Black Bear founder Teddy Schwarzman’s fresh venture makes a statement buy. It is led by former CAA Media Finance co-head Ben Kramer, an astute executive who has the backing of an established infrastructure with deep ties to production, as well as sales and distribution stablemates in the UK.

Black Bear plans to release up to 12 in-house and third-party titles a year. Its focus is filmmaker-driven features and wide-release action and genre titles, evoking the venerable FilmDistrict in the minds of several sources. Given Schwarzman’s taste and producorial track record with the likes of The Imitation Game, Nyad, and Mudbound, nobody will be surprised if awards contenders find their way into the pipeline.

It was reported recently that Black Bear is looking at releasing SXSW hit The Rivals Of Amziah King starring Matthew McConaughey. Black Bear fully financed, produced and launched international sales in Cannes two years ago on the Oklahoma-set crime drama.

In a similar vein, who would bet against the company taking on either of two TIFF selections it has financed, produced and represents for international sales? Christy is David Michôd’s boxing biopic about Christy Martin that stars Sydney Sweeney. Tuner is a crime drama from the Oscar-winning Navalny director Daniel Roher that stars Leo Woodall, Dustin Hoffman, and Havana Rose Liu.

Meanwhile former Imax and Paramount top executive Megan Colligan has been appointed president of Row K, a fresh venture backed by entertainment investor Media Capital Technologies. Row K will be scouring TIFF for acquisitions to kick-start an annual slate of 10 wide-release, star-driven films.

In a very different ballpark, former Sideshow Films executive Jason Hellerstein launched arthouse distributor 1-2 Special earlier this year and the company will be on the ground in Toronto. Targeting eight to 10 releases a year, it has already acquired a trio of Cannes acquisitions including Harris Dickinson’s directing debut Urchin from Un Certain Regard.

TIFF acquisitions titles include Bobby Farrelly’s Driver’s Ed with Sam Nivola from The White Lotus; Maude Apatow’s feature debut Poetic License produced by her comedy veteran father Judd Apatow and starring her mother Leslie Mann; and Alice Winocour’s fashion world drama Couture with Angelina Jolie. Mona Fastvold’s The Testament Of Ann Lee starring Amanda Seyfried is among the acquisition titles that premiered in Venice.

Market packages

Major market packages were gaunt on the ground at time of writing, with AGC Studios’ Babies and Fleur, and Black Bear’s Kockroach the pick of the bunch so far, according to American sources who flew into town on Wednesday.

TIFF wants to become the place where sellers bring lots of premium packages and is gearing up for next year’s inaugural TIFF: The Market led by Canadian industry veteran Charles Tremblay. The Americans are on the fence about it. Over the years they have approached Toronto as an opportunity to screen completed films for buyers as they ease back into the cycle after the summer break. They have brought packages if they are ready, preferring to save the ponderous volume for November’s American Film Market, which has wrestled with challenges in recent years.

The TIFF hierarchy has been promoting the 2026 market launch enthusiastically, and with a three-year CAD $23m (USD $16.7m) funding commitment from the Canadian government, on top of the ever-present need to sustain TIFF as a energetic business, it’s effortless to see why. However it is significant to note that film sales will be one of several elements at TIFF: The Market, which is conceived as a broad and forward-looking content hub that will cater to AI, fresh media, and television, among other areas.

The challenge of Pay TV

Pay 1 and pay 2 windows will be a talking point in Toronto. Not every distributor has a pay TV partner – which these days means a streamer – and sources complain privately that streamers are not paying top dollar for licence fees. All this can hinder theatrical buyers looking to move decisively in the marketplace. 

Hulu is said to be one of the worst offenders, although it is unclear what will happen once the company becomes a tile on Disney+ in 2026. As Netflix and Prime Video scale back their acquisitions and focus on production, industry sources hope that companies like HBO Max and Paramount+, the latter now housed under David Ellison’s Paramount Pictures, raise their game.

Could Apple become a more lively pay 1 buyer? Possibly, although the company’s film strategy is murky and it prefers to buy all rights. Its F1: The Movie was the summer’s biggest original Hollywood hit on $188m in North America and $615m worldwide.

Could Mubi fit the bill? It is ambitious and was highly lively in Cannes, splurging $24m for North America and select territories on Lynne Ramsay’s Die, My Love. However it is a theatrical buyer itself, and its requirements may be too specific to work as a US pay TV partner.

AGC Studios head Stuart Ford says streamers are lively investors in content but need to pay “fair market value” for pay 1 and pay 2 windows. This, he says, would encourage talent, financiers, and international buyers.

“Independent films that have been created, financed and marketed theatrically all at someone else’s expense should make great economic sense to platforms,” Ford says. By underpaying, he argues they have “impaired the distribution waterfall domestically and internationally in recent years”.

The increasing prevalence of AI data analytics will give buyers a better idea of what constitutes fair value. “If the major streamers don’t start to offer equitable license fees,” Ford says, ”then sooner or later other platforms are going to fill the void.”

The usual suspects 

Netflix and the streamers will be in TIFF and are always in the market for an opportunistic buy. The question is, will the theatrical crowd get out their wallets?

Some of the usual suspects have shiny awards rosters to keep themselves busy; others may feel more pressure to return with a fresh film or two, or at least know they have begun meaningful negotiations.

Focus Features has a full slate that is arguably its best ever. It arrives on the back of rave reviews out of Venice and Telluride for Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia with lauded Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons, and Chloe Zhao’s Telluride premiere Hamnet, which earned plaudits for Jessie Buckley, and plays in TIFF.

A24 screens The Smashing Machine with Venice revelation Dwayne Johnson, and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. Neon has the Cannes trio of Palme d’Or winner It Was Just An Accident, Sentimental Value, and The Secret Agent. A immense Sony Pictures Classics roster includes Nuremberg, Blue Moon, and A Private Life. 

Neon has expanded its team heading into awards season. In Cannes they brought on awards specialist and marketing guru Ryan Werner as president of global cinema, and later in the summer hired David Laub as SVP of marketing and publicity from Metrograph Pictures, which hit turbulence and is pausing theatrical releases until further notice.

“That extremely specialty market is important to keep alive,” notes one seasoned sales and packaging agent. Encouraging then, that in its first year 1-2 Special has proved to be a highly engaged buyer.

Searchlight Pictures would seem most likely of all the huge awards veterans to be looking to bulk up a slate that brings one TIFF offering – the world premiere of Rental Family starring Brendan Fraser. It premieres Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On? starring Will Arnett as the opening film in New York Film Festival.

Bleecker Street, led by CEO Kent Sanderson, has shown itself increasingly willing to take bets on more commercial titles when opportunity beckons. And it has been boarding projects earlier: 2026 will bring its biggest ever pre-buy slate that features Guy Nattiv’s 2024 Cannes market acquisition Harmonia.

Independent Film Company, formerly known as IFC, recently acquired Cannes hazing drama The Plague with Joel Edgerton. It operates as part of IFC Entertainment Group under the purview of group head Scott Shooman, and stablemate Shudder just picked up territories on TIFF selection Honey Bunch.

Two other buyers that have stepped up are Vertical and Samuel Goldwyn Films. Vertical will continue to release 30-40 films a year straight to digital, but now targets 10-12 annual theatrical releases, many of which sit in the tricky middle ground budget range between tentpoles and arthouse.

It just released Ron Howard’s TIFF 2024 acquisition and psychological drama Eden led by Jude Law and Syndey Sweeney. Recent releases include Kristin Scott Thomas’s feature directing debut My Mother’s Wedding, and Justin Kurzel’s Venice 2024 selection The Order, also starring Law. 2026 brings Rowan Athale’s Giant starring Pierce Brosnan and Amir El-Asry as British boxing legend Prince Naseem ‘Naz’ Hamed’.

Samuel Goldwyn Films president Peter Goldwyn and his team release across a range of footprints from narrow to wide, depending on the film. The storied company took Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round all the way to the international feature film Oscar in 2021 and garnered a nomination the following year for Pawo Choyning Dorji’s Bhutanese family drama Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom – but Goldwyn and partner Ben Feingold are on the lookout for bigger titles.

They have enjoyed solid theatrical runs with the likes of The Count Of Monte-Cristo, and release Red Sonja and Kraken later this year. Coming up in early 2026 is a huge release for the company in the form of Liam Neeson sci-fi comedy Cold Storage. ”Our eye is always towards the audience,” says Goldwyn, “and our job is to connect with the audience.”