By Liza Foreman
This week’s European Film Market in Berlin had buyers buzzing about big projects.
Jason Resnick, consultant and former acquisitions exec at Universal said: “There were a lot of commercial projects with big stars which got the buyers excited. Post the strikes, we are seeing a bounce back at the market.”
But although the scene was set for a strong market coming off a solid Sundance, following months of strikes deadlock, relatively few big deals were reported.
The regular suspects came through with big titles: Fuze, Small Things Like These, Materialists, Sugar Bandits. (see sales company overview story).
There were rumors that some of these glitzy packages lead to record asking tags for Germany. For example, the Will Smith starrer Sugar Bandits that does not yet have a director in place. Buyers report the film has gone to Leonine for $15 million. Leonine says it will announce deals after the fest wraps.
A few key deals were announced during EFM, including Sony acquiring worldwide rights to the Margot Tobbie, Colin Farrel starrer Big Bold Beautiful Journey for a reported $50 million range price tag.
Sony also boarded Past Lives’ director Celine Song’s Materialists from A24. It has reportedly taken all of international, excluding Russia, China, and Japan. A24 is handling the U.S. release.
The arthouse streamer Mubi acquired David Hinton’s Martin Scorsese-narrated docu, Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger for numerous international territories, including German-speaking Europe, Italy, France and Benelux, and Latin America, Turkey and India.
Germany’s Beta Cinema announced pre-sales on the Joseph Goebbels’ biopic Fuehrer and Seducer by Joachim A. Lang.
Beta said deals had closed with Spain (A Contracorriente), Portugal (Films4You), Scandinavia (Mis Label), Benelux (Dutch Film Works), Czech Republic (Donart Film), former Yugoslavia (Discovery) Japan (AT Entertainment) and Australia & New Zealand (Moving Story Entertainment).
From Goebels to Hollywood, other buzz projects included Black Bear International adding the musical project Fred & Ginger, with the title characters played by Jamie Bell and Margaret Qualley.
But not everyone was impressed with the activity. Said one German buyer: “Interestingly, from about 30 bigger mainstream projects, only two were from female directors. It is great that festival/arthouse directors like Andrea Arnold and Celine Song have decided to do mainstream filmmaking!”
Song is directing one of the hottest titles at the market, Materialists, while Arnold’s first film in a decade, Bird, was picked up by Cornerstones Film at the market. The film was shot in Southeast England last summer and follows characters on the fringes of society.
The streamers took part in the background with a major party thrown for Netflix’s Adam Sandler starrer, Spaceman. Talk at the market was that a return of theatrical distributors could help with the rebound as well as the selling of top tier packages.
Jerome Paillard, the former executive director of the Marche du Film who is now a consultant at Troposphere remarked: “I saw that Berlin generated a lot of enthusiasm from both buyers and sellers. I think the post-strike period is an important factor in the abundance of big American projects. But I’m also struck by the resurgence of theatrical distributors, after years of platform domination. This is a good signal, which will surely be confirmed and perhaps amplified at Cannes.”
Not only was Berlin big on titles but also on attendance, according to official figures unveiled on Thursday.
Its record number of attendees for 2024 put it on par with the Marche du Film in Cannes, the biggest market of the year.
“From day one, it was apparent that the European Film Market 2024, the first trade fair event of the year and also the first after last year’s industry strikes in the US, was very well-attended and extremely busy,” said outgoing EFM Director Dennis Ruh. “The market participants’ meeting schedules were filled to capacity. Many high-turnover deals were being reported every day.”
The EFM announced over 12,000 trade visitors from 143 countries. There were more than 614 exhibiting companies and institutions from 69 countries situated at the market hubs, the Gropius Bau and Marriott Hotel. 1,263 buyers registered and 664 films were shown in 1029 screenings, including 536 market premieres.
But there was a three percent fall in the number of buyers this year, and a 14 percent drop in the number of film and series screenings in the market following the strike, with 1,029 screenings online and onsite, including 536 market premieres. In 2023, there was a total of 1,533 screenings, and 599 market premieres at EFM.
