In a wide-ranging AFM fireside talk, AGC Studios head Stuart Ford urged US theatrical distributors to invest earlier in projects, talked about streamers’ “fundamental” role in the independent ecosystem, and asserted that the market needs to return to Los Angeles.
“We really need the actual US distribution community to rediscover its appetite for risk,” Ford said during an ’Innovators’ conference session on Thursday, noting that caution among US theatrical buyers due to the challenging nature of the distribution space has created a trend of waiting to see completed films.
While he understood the reason why theatrical buyers did this, Ford outlined the consequences. “They’ll be outbid nine times out of 10 by streaming platforms for the really good stuff. So on one level, that understandable safety-first approach is actually relegating the quality of the content that many of these indie distributors, who are so vital to our ecosystem, can get.”
He added, “I’m a huge admirer of A24 and Neon, both of whom you would say are exceptions to that rule, and both of whom have shown that if you’ll take a part in something creatively, you will be rewarded on a regular basis and you can have really high levels of success.” Were more US buyers to do that, Ford said, “it will inject a degree of reliability to the food chain that will in turn attract capital back into the independent business”.
AGC launched sales in Toronto 2023 on Richard Linklater’s festival selections Hit Man and Anna Kendrick’s Woman Of The Hour, when US theatrical buyers made offers on both. However Netflix came in higher and acquired the pair, debuting both on its platform this year.
“I watched the Netflix marketing and publicity team turn those movies into part of the conversation the way we always did when I was at Miramax,” the AGC Studios chairman and CEO said, adding that the streamers have “an absolutely fundamental role” in keeping the independent ecosystem strong by buying finished films and making films. “We should all be around the table.”
Amazon Studios has emerged as a critical component of the higher-end international sales business. “They buy a lot of movies territorially,” Ford said, ”and when we come to these markets, they are a priority buyer… one of the real pillars of the independent business now. Streaming isn’t going away, so it’s one of the various reasons why I’m legitimately quite optimistic about where our sector is headed.”
Ford was also bullish on the state of international pre-sales, noting: ”Reports of it dying are not just premature, they’re completely inaccurate. I think the foreign sales business is very much alive and kicking.” Citing a robust response to AGC’s three AFM sales titles – tennis world match-fixing drama The Journeyman with Dev Patel, Russell Crowe action adventure The Last Druid, and Fing!, an upcoming adaptation of David Walliams’ children’s book to star Taika Waititi – the executive expects to have licensed 80% to 100% of international territories within the next few days. Each project’s budget falls in the $30m budget range.
In an earlier observation about the independent space in general, Ford said independent film financing, despite challenges, remained an “incredibly” time- and capital-efficient way to finance premium films.
”The speed with which you can come to a film market,” he noted, ”and have a community of sophisticated financiers, sophisticated buyers, often with a 10, 15, 20-year relationship with those sellers, commercial banks who will lend against everybody’s paper, completion guarantors who know how to turn the screw and execute from a physical production perspective to be able to do that, make deals, license the content and leverage $10m, $20m, $50m, $100m of capital in a matter of weeks, is so much quicker and so much more effective than pretty much any other industry I know.”
As for the location of the AFM in 2025, the executive opined on this year’s digs at Palms Casino Resort. “There is an efficiency to having a market in one building, screenings in one building, industry gatherings in one building – that has benefited business at this AFM,” he told session moderator, Screen’s Jeremy Kay. “Do I think Vegas is the right environment for AFM long term? Absolutely not. My message to [market organiser] IFTA is, ‘This has been fun, you’ve done a great job, now take us home.’
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