Newly launched distributor Row K, which was just about the only distributor doing anything out of TIFF last year, could be similarly aggressive at Sundance.
Other new players like 1-2 Special, Black Bear, and WILLA will be shopping and may make the difference between a healthy market and another slow one.
Together sold to Neon for eight figures, Netflix’s Train Dreams is in the midst of the Oscar race, A24’s Sorry, Baby got recognitiom from various critics groups.
Even documentaries like “The Perfect Neighbor,” “Oh, Hi!,” “Predators,” “Come See Me in the Good Light,” “Rebuilding,” and “Twinless” found homes and audiences.
That said, almost nothing sold within the confines of the 11 day festival, and other early buzzy did not pay off.
As one sales agent said, “They all want home runs now, but what constitutes a home run?”
Christopher Woodrow of Row K, which last fall bought four movies out of TIFF including the recent release, Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire, said the market today is lacking healthy number of indie distributors, and it opens the door for him to be aggressive.
While Row K may not call its shot at Sundance but could wait for Berlin or Cannes to make a splash, he told IndieWire with assuredness that his company figures to be “one of the most active buyers” among indies this year.
The new Warner label and Paramount’s Republic Pictures are looking to make their own splash.
For the WB label, its focus is lower-cost films that target digital natives and Gen Z audiences, and it’s aiming for zeitgeist-driving fare utilizing highly efficient targeted marketing. All that corporate speak is a fancy way of saying that if there’s another movie at Sundance like “Anora” or “Longlegs,” the former Neon folks are going to pounce.
This is why Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy hired Christian, who had done such amazing job at Neon with Longless. “I know that they like that,” said the enre-film producer and Co-founder of Spooky Pictures Roy Lee, who is bringing his Fantasia Fest discovery Undertone to Sundance A24 picked the film up out of that festival.
“I feel like a new leaf has turned over,” added Ben Ross, CEO of Image Nation and producer on “Undertone.” “As much as everyone’s talking about doom and gloom, when new well-capitalized companies are coming in, the people who capitalize those companies are smart, and they’re getting into that business because they’re smart people who know how to deploy their money.”
Sundance seems to have acknowledged that shift in the market: Only a dozen of the 94 features and episodic pilots have distributors coming into the festival.
And whereas last year veered indie, 2026 is more well-rounded with genre films, commercial comedies, and international gems.
Wicker
Justin Lothrop, aproducer from Votiv on Olivia Colman’s film Wicker, said the market is “starting to reward movies that feel left of center and a bit different.” His movie is about a fisherwoman who crafts a husband out of wicker.
“Whether that’s Everything Everywhere All at Once or Parasite, those movies have proved to do well for financiers. Seeing that Paramount and WB are creating specialty labels to get involved in smaller movies, there’s a reason to be optimistic that the indie film landscape is going to continue to be healthy,” Lothrop said.
When new players come into the market, it’s because older buyers are starting to go out.
Buyers might be wary of overpaying the way MUBI did for Die My Love at Cannes last year, which bombed at the box-office.
That’s especially true for emerging companies.
Sony Pictures Classics is expected to need films, Focus Features is looking for a couple of titles to fill out a slate of 14 films in 2026, and even though they don’t have the Pay-1 deals, distributors like 101 Studios, Magnolia, Vertical, Ketchup, and Roadside are all still in play.
Whether Warner’s new arm becomes something that can work with Netflix or become something that operates on its own, agents are waiting for those first acquisitions before making conclusions.
“It shouldn’t be about squeezing every last dollar that you can to get the highest bidder. It is about what is the plan, what is the idea? Who do you connect to best? What do you think is the right fit for you and your movie,” Row K president Megan Colligan said. “That is an important conversation that needs to take place and that filmmakers really understand that they’re in the right home for their film, because for many filmmakers they’re beginning a relationship that will last a very long time.”
Brad Becker-Parton, who produced the Will Poulter addiction drama Union County, said that if you can start by making a movie for a small amount of people first, “you have a shot.”
“On this movie we were conscious of having a core audience who, this could be their favorite movie, that it could really speak to a core audience, and then bigger relationship to the movie blossoms from there,” Becker-Parton said. “Those are really the only things you can control as a producer. I never want to make completely uncommercial movies for nobody.”
Producer Apoorva Charan’s film Take Me Home aims squarely at the caregiving community and to those living with cognitive disabilities. She’s hopeful that when it comes to these new distributors, the playbook won’t be the same but will instead create direct pathways and relationships with audiences.
“They give me a lot of hope because I feel like they will understand what this film is and how to reach audiences. Something that we’re looking for when we’re looking for distributors is, who is that partner, and who’s going to engage with our audiences the way we hope to,” Charan said. “Are they going to have significant box office results? I don’t know if they’re going to be breaking barriers there, but I do think they’re going to be breaking barriers in which audiences they target.”
