Upbeat Roeg Sutherland Says Bullish On Indie Cinema Sector
Roeg S. Sutherland, CAA’s Media Finance Head, gave a positive assessment of the status of the independent movie industry as the European Film Market got underway on Friday.
Sutherland said, “We have about 20
that we will walk away with and 20 movies going into production as well as some fairly sizeable deals.”
Sutherland, who spoke at an EFM masterclass packed with indie filmmakers, acknowledged that the L.A. Fires had made for a difficult start to the new year, but said the outlook for the independent community was positive.
[projects]
He mentioned the recent box-office success of Focus Features with Nosferatu and Fox Searchlight with A Complete Unknown, as well as Neon with longlegs.
“People are coming out to watch adult-dramas, I know Longlegs isn’t an adult drama but the others are,” he added, noting also the box office performance of award season frontrunners The Brutalist, and Anora.
He said that part of the reason for the current positive trend was due to producers who budgeted their projects carefully.
Anora was only six or seven dollars, but the Brutalist cost $9M. That’s fiscally responsible. You can now take more risks. It’s easier. It means Neon can keep a movie in theaters for a lot longer and platform a movie so it can find an audience over the course of 45 or 60 days, as opposed to you have so much pressure because you have such a huge equity gap against North America, that you have to rely on the opening week, otherwise you’re in trouble financially.”
Sutherland is equally optimistic about the international markets, despite many B.O. In 2024 (apart for France), the markets in Europe stagnated, and some, like Germany, even declined.
He suggested that streaming services were continuing to support independent films as well, although reluctantly and not necessarily because of subscriber demand.
He said, “They do not want to make independent movies, but they know that they must operate in this space to remain relevant in our world, and to be able track the type of filmmakers with whom they wish to work.”
Sutherland said that the EFM was in its second day and he was confident about some deals this year.
“Foreign Sales are doing very well.” We are in the middle of this market. He said that the U.S. is not alone in this.
“After Covid there was a hysterical reaction from foreign distributors. ‘What are going to do?’ You’ve seen how Europe and Asia have bounced back. And that people now care less about American movies and more about local-language products.”
Sutherland addressed an audience that was primarily made up of young professionals, with a few veterans. He dispelled the myth about packaging a project to be sold being all about signing stars.
“We don’t really like projects that are driven by actors,” he said. “There are movie stars. If Brad Pitt wants a movie to be made, it’s not a problem to set up the Brad Pitt film. But for the most, we focus on new ideas,” said he.
“That may seem obvious, but most people are just rehashing old ideas. Many of the new ideas we find come from Korea, Scandinavia and other places outside the United States. It doesn’t matter if you like Anora, if you don’t, it still matters that these are new ideas… we haven’t had them in a very long time. “
