How to Make a Deal at Sundance

most active companies at this year's Sundance Film Festival. In preparation for Sundance, Brett Lange, Varieties Executive editor of Film and Media, spoke with Davidson about his approach to dealmaking, why documentaries are all the rage again, and how the

Orchard distinguishes itself from other studios. Hello, I'm Brent Lane, and I'm the Variety Executive editor of Film and Media, and I'm joint here today at our New York studio with Paul Davidson, who is the executive vice president of Film and Television at the Orchard, one of the premier and the studios working in the space right now. Uh, the Orchard is very busy this awards season. Um, they have l and Hell coming out, an acclaimed foreign film,

and also the Party's just beginning. Upcoming films of the Orchard include Birds of Passage, The Hummingbird Project, Date Like Sleep, and under the Eiffel Tower. Very pleased to have Paul with me today. Thanks, I'm glad to be here to see you. So, Paul, UM, I think to start, why don't we talk a little bit about Sundance. The slate has been announced, at least the bulk of the slate. I'm interested. Will you be at the festival this year? Will you be looking for product when you hit Park City?

Of course? I mean this is Sundance, is the pendulate Um festival for us next to can in Toronto. UM, so we will be there in force as we have been for the last set of years. It's interesting UM to watch UH and and anticipate what we think will happen there, especially with respect a competition at the festival.

One of the trends that we had seen mostly out of two thousand, sixteen and seventeen was this scenario where you had the s the streaming services who had yet to really spin up their production and development you know entities, and so as a result, everything was getting bit up fairly high. You were seeing huge you know, price tags

on content. And then what we saw over the last year specifically, which we anticipated, was this change in the marketplace where the Amazons and the Netflix is of the world already had most of their product um in development, production, and some of the other indies were also starting production, development and production themselves, and so um it actually regulated last year, and that's something that you know, we we anticipate to happen this year as well, and we're looking

forward to the slate. When when you talk, when you say the word regulated, you mean that prices came back down to earth a little bit, Yes, they did. Last year was a good example of of movies selling for what you would expect them to sell. We're based on how you model a movie and what you think, you know, looking at historical comps of what a movie can do.

You know, that's ever, every distributor who's picking up a movie has their set of numbers that they're they're running when they're looking at what they can pay for a film, and typically Netflix and Amazon were always paying you know, two times that, maybe three times that some of that because they're buying out the lifetime of the product and so filmmakers and producers and investors will never have the opportunity for upside and so they're compensating them for that.

Um But yeah, there was you know there it's going to regulate regulated last year, it'll regulate more this year as well. The only kind of wild card this year is documentaries because this last year, documentaries you know, gross revenue at the box office that we've never seen over the last ten years. But before this year, typically we would expect four or five movies to break two million of the box office from a documentary standpoint, and this

year you're seeing huge number. There's i mean ten million plus on you know, five six seven movies this year. So the expectation is, uh, the agents and the the sales as agents will be coming to town with an expectation to um get much higher value for the documentaries based on the potential opportunity for docs to explode again next year. So that's a good question because it seems like in in Hollywood often, um, you know, there's a

lot of imitation, right, things that work. Studios are eager to sort of do the same thing that worked for someone else. How do you, you know, balance the fact that documentaries seem to be doing quite well right now, uh, with maybe the risk that that's something of an anomaly, right, that maybe there were just a few projects that really resonated with people that it's not some kind of larger popular embrace of that medium. When you're making your decisions, well,

I think that's what you have to do. You can't get caught up in the the you know, the buzz and the business of it all. You have to stay true to what you think a film is going to do. It's it's tough because suddenly you're looking at a list of comps from the last year that are generating you know, five to ten million dollars at the box office, and those always are these outliers that come into play when you're you know, modeling out what you think you can

pay for a film. But our philosophy, I mean, we we're not We're not spending at the upper echelon um to where we're going to drop, you know, millions and millions of dollars on a documentary. It's just the reality because you have to plan for the scenario where it doesn't resonate. There have been films in the past we've picked up um documentaries that we thought were very theatrical that didn't necessarily deliver in that window the way we'd expected.

And you know, if you if you overspend in that scenario, it can really ruin your year, and you you know, you just have to be cognizant and careful about how how aggressive you get. What about the slate on paper and obviously a lot of time as you go into these festivals and you think, oh, these are going to

be the movies that really deliver. Maybe it's because they have a big star, they have a director who's who's proven themselves in the past, and you know, lo and behold, there's some surprise that that you never saw coming, that that starts some kind of bidding more. But on paper, what do you think about UM this year selection? Do? Do these films look commercial? Compelling? What? What are your

sort of impressions? I think with respect to the narrative films that are at the festival this year, there's there's a good handful of commercial projects. I think, UM Late Night, which is the Mini Kaling film. Um, we've been tracking for some time. We read the script, it's a very commercial film. UM, Emma Thompson, I mean is in there

in that film as well? It's a it's a great cast of characters and you know, if it delivers, it could could be a big sick esque um, maybe not that big, but I think it has the potential to attract studios who are looking for additional content. You know, I could see that if it works, that's a movie that goes for you know, four to six million in domestic MG, and that potentially goes you know, maybe that is an Amazon, maybe that's a lions Gate. Perhaps that's

a paramount if it's at that level. The funny and sad thing. At the same time, as you know, we say we were we're looking for movies that are um, we're passionate about that are really going to deliver. But also if they're perfect, they're probably going to be at the level of expense that a studio would suddenly jump into. So you know, you you're always looking for the movies

that are not perfect. Like we have this joke where when we're watching films at festivals that are comedies, especially a we don't laugh because we don't want to laugh and contribute to the overall perception in a in an audience with buyers that the movie is amazing and every laugh costs us more money. So it's like you kind of live in this world of like it's it's really good, but it's not amazing gonna cost this, It's not gonna

cost that um. But anyway, so Late Night is one of those examples of it's for sure going to be a commercial film. I think there are there are new filmmakers, so new producers and new filmmakers bringing content to Sundance. That um, they've gone through the Sundance Labs and we've been aware of these titles for some time and they've kind of made it through over the last three years finally to to green light into you know, physical production.

There's a film called Wolf Hour with Naomi Watts originally with Jennifer Connolly. This was a film that has made it through the labs for some time and said in the seventies and could be a good performance for Naomi. Um. There's a film and I'm gonna and it's horrible on spacing on the name, it's um. Alec Baldwin is in it. Judith light Um. It's a kind of a New York based comedy about two sisters who find out that their mother is still alive and she's a soap opera actress.

That's another one that went through the Sundance Labs that um. We've read the script we know that the talent and we you know, kind of been waiting to see what was gonna happen with that. Um, I'm trying to think across the board with some of the other films that are there. There's not there's not a huge amount of like big sick type films this year, but I think that the the slate of films is a little broader

um than last year. Last year felt to me personally, um like, um, it was very much a response to kind of what was going on in our world and in the country, and um, you know some of the issues that I think were present in representation of women and minorities and African Americans. I mean, you saw on the heels of Moonlight winning Best Picture, there was the

Sundance slate was very kind of it was darker. It was kind of holding up a mirror to society and what was going on in a way that there was a lot of powerful films, but when it came down to what film is going to generate money at the box office, there were less of those movies. There were films that came out of Sundance last year that, um,

we're great and critically acclaimed, but just didn't connect. And I think that that's an example of audiences, you know, having had experienced that one great film the previous year that filled a certain genre um or spoke to them in a certain way, and then there were three or four of them the following year, and people just you know, reached a point of where of saturation with respect to that. And I think you'll you're gonna see a lot of docks this year go for a significant amount of money

and they're not all going to delivered. UM. Cameron Crowe has a documentary he's produced UM that I think if the music doc that that could do well. There's a UM there's a doc called the I think the Amazing Jonathan about this kind of quirky magician. His story sounds like it could be fun. UM. You know, Apollo eleven is there, which is already being distributed by Neon UM. And we saw we saw footage of that almost a

year ago. We were you know, it came down to I believe Neon and us looking at that movie and that's the spectacular film where they have all of this amazing footage from the Apollo eleven missions that people have never seen that were UM remastered in four K. I mean it's it's it's an experience. So that's the other thing. There's a lot of movies that already have UM distribution across Netflix across and Neon has that title. I think

has three titles. We have Birds of Passage there. So there you that becomes the trend that we see more and more. We saw it can this last year is when you look at the films that are available, there's a higher percentage of films that are already spoken for UM and so just it limits the titles that are available.

But I think it it kind of it all balances out in the wash at the end of the day because you have less streaming services, less companies that are looking for products are already producing or have already pre acquired those those films. Um. You were talking about a movie like Late Night, Um, that that seems very commercial, that could sell for four to six million dollars. UM. When you when you purchase something for that price, what do you actually need to do with the box office

in order to make that back? And when you factor in marketing and other kinds of costs, well, um, you know, when we look at the numbers behind acquiring a movie, we're looking at all the windows were attributing a certain dollar amount to you know, you're making the box office right, so you can calculate that Typically your SPoD your pay one deals are tied to a percentage of the box office, So you can calculate if you believe, based on comps that that four million dollar pickup is going to do

eight million at the box office, then you're probably gonna do in your first pay window of that number. Um you look at comps on digital and cable, the ancillary pieces at the end of the day. From our perspective, and we look at a film and a P and L of a movie where we're hoping to target somewhere in like um net profit range. So we use our comps,

we map it out. We you know, we be put in there what we're going to spend on P and A, but we think it takes I mean typically in the industry, the modest way of thinking about it is, if you are expecting eight million at the box office, you probably need to spend close to eight million to make that in in your box office. We've been fortunate and some movies in the past where word of mouth really is significant,

like a Hunt for the Wilder People. I don't know that we've we've shared it before, but I don't mind sharing it. I mean, we spent one point two million on P and A for that movie and generated close to five million of the box office. Like when you can do that, that's a word of mouth film. It's it's kind of tough to do that. I mean, it's it doesn't happen often. But where you you can spend so modestly, then you're in you're in an amazing shape.

But typically it's you know, spend eight to make eight, and so you're just you have to build out all those numbers and ensure that you're seeing you know, you believe we do you know a low base and high case scenario. Where do we think that base case scenario is? And and then that tells us what we can spend. And have you found that that when you sort of map out the potential lifespan of a film that you require one of these festivals, is it pretty accurate? I mean,

are you you know? It's um, It's it's tough to say, I mean, um, more often than not, it's tough. It's I would say, probably, you know we're building a slate. So when we look at, you know, the eight to ten theatricals were acquiring a year. If we've been conservative and we've we've matched, we've kind of locked to that base case once some are gonna over perform, some are

gonna underperform. And generally, at the end of the day, unless you have a big failure or a huge success, your your singles and doubles maybe overperform and your your home runs, don't. It kind of balances out on a title by title basis. You know, do those numbers? How close are we do those original expectations? If I don't think anybody's anybody's great at it. It's all instinct and comps. Maybe sixty percent of the time, six seventy percent of

the time. Are you in the neighborhood plus or minus? You know of the number, but it's just things you know, like, for example, we picked up the Hummingbird Project at Toronto and UM for it's a great movie, very modest MG, and we haven't even released the movie yet, And some of the ancillary windows we've already secured are above and beyond what we've spent to get the movie. So we know,

going into a movie like that. Wow, we the first pay window was so significant for that film because of the cast with Salamahayak and Jesse Eisenberg and scars Guard that, Um, we're feeling great going into that movie because you know, spend P and A is basically the only thing we have to kind of recoup with all the other windows. So sometimes you just you you luck out in a

way you never expected. I mean, the movies that we distribute from Taycho with TV, which is what we do in the Shadows and Hunt for the Wilder People, these movies were very modest pickups. They've you know, collectively probably made more money the two of those movies and any any other film that we have in our slate. Um collectively, they probably generated ten to twenty million dollars in net revenue um because they become they become these word of

mouth cult classics. And so you know, when you find those films, as many people have found this year, when you see some of the box office for these indies films, you you double down and you you keep building on that. One thing I always thought was really interesting about what you guys do at the Orchard is that you believe in transparency when it comes to how you make money, you actually share them publicly on certain films. Why did you decide to do that? I mean, nobody else seems

remotely interested in sharing that kind of information. Well, it's it, guess it's it could be dangerous for some. I mean the origin, you know, the origins of the Orchard UM first and foremost are based in a twenty year history of global music distribution, where labels and artists are it's very important to them to understand how they're how they're sorry their films and movies, how their calm, their content,

their albums, their songs, that tracks are performing. And so from a very early stage that DNA was built into the Orchard to share and be transparent. And we have engineers have built these these back end dashboards that allow those those clients to see in real time how money is being spent against their films and where you know,

where the money is coming from the digital platforms. So for us, when we really through gasoline on the fire for building the film division back and four team, we wanted to do the same and what we heard from filmmakers was one of the major frustrations was the two things UM they have no had no idea how their movie was doing when they were going to recoup the

recoupment of the investment profitability, no no awareness whatsoever. They would get kind of a statement in the mail a year later and had to call somebody to figure out what it even meant. Um and collaboration, that's the other thing that I'll talk about in a sec But for us, we heard that loud and clear, and so you know,

we doubled down on it. And so, you know, a couple of years ago as a you know, we've continued to internally build and um this dashboard in the back end that not only shows filmmakers what they're making in real time, but does this kind of projection of here the contracted dollars. We know we're coming we have a deal at Netflix for the next three years. This much money is coming in. Here's where we think profitability is

going to happen. And this is all kind of you know, under under the main the guys of what we initially green with the movie at what we thought it was gonna do. So they can see all of these things and and we're super We're super transparent about everything. We I'm always surprised when I hear from filmmakers. We'll get an offer for a pay one license, and we'll call them up and we'll say, we have these three platforms.

It's HBO and it's Netflix, and it's Amazon, and here's why we would want to go with this one and here's what it means. And filmmakers say, we never get calls about this. Nobody. They just call us up and say, your movie is gonna be on direct TV and that's

where it's going. And so for us, it's it requires a lot of time and effort, but at the end of the day, I think the effort far outweighs the downside of being honest with them about what's going on, and that that's the one problem I think that most filmmakers have when they come out of experiences. A bad experience with the distributor is typically it's colored by a lack of communication, lack of transparency, and a lack of

um aligned expectations. You know, if you don't when people ask for an awards campaign, and this is here's a great example. We went to Cannon, we picked up Birds of Passage and we said, Birds of Passage, this is our our focus. For an awards campaign. Um, we told that to the filmmakers and we said to them, we're not going to pick up another movie to compete with that, that we are committed to this plan. And then we saw l Angel or if I'm being good with the accent,

l ang Hell is what they say in Argentina. And they came to us and I said, I love the film, that we already committed to Birds of Passage the only way we would distribute it as you need to be aware that we are not doing an awards campaign. We're doing it for birds And if you're okay with that, knowing going in we're not doing X Y and Z, we're not spending X Y and Z, then I need to go back to the Birds of Passage team and make sure they're okay with it. That's just how how

we approach it. We find that it just at the end of the day, is a better way to interact

with folks. And El Angel was very appreciative and they still wanted us to distribute their film, and the Birds of Passage filmmakers were were happy for us to help them out in that way, and that that kind of is like an example of how how we deal with our filmmakers and it, as I said, it's it takes a lot of time and effort, and sometimes we look at ourselves and we say, oh my gosh, we we have to do how many calls this week to socialize this, this,

this and this. But it's a better experience. UM. So you were talking about coming on board and I believe to help launch this film enterprise for for the Orchard. Why did the Orchard feel there was an opportunity here. It's not as if there have been a lot of success stories and the indie film space. What what did they see as a a you know, possible source of profits. Well, I think they had they had witnessed the experience that the music the music artists had had with them as

a company. You know, this is this is a global distribution network. This is not we're going to handle this piecemeal and that piecemeal. It was the infrastructure was there in such a significant way, UM. And the writing was on the wall with respect to the changing of the windows and the new platforms of opportunity with UM with video content, with film and television that they felt like if we could as a company, we could offer that similar life cycle. You know planning and support for content

that there was a value there. If you look at the landscape of indie distributors, there's very few any distributors that actually handle from A to Z. You know, some indie distributors will handle marketing and releasing of their theatricals and then a studio takes their digital and another company takes their physical. We handle aside from us. You know.

The only thing we don't do internally is we do work with Lionsgate on our bigger titles to release them through their DVD infrastructure because we just at this point in the DVD life cycle um that that business is not growing and so it was something we didn't feel like we needed to build but internally as a company for us to be able to offer filmmakers and content creators of that end to end opportunity where it's not a different team every six months as a new window

opens up, it's the same team. They're leveraging all the great work and marketing materials and assets and critical acclaim from the first window for the second window and that digital windows. You know, success is being leveraged for you know, when it's on av ODD services and so it just it's a seamless opportunity, and we felt that that would be something that folks would be you know, interested in, and they happen. Has it been um more difficult than

you expected to to get into this space? I mean, what, what are some things that surprised you when it came to really making it a name for yourself? Well? I think when we so the first Sundance we all went to after we kind of you know again, before I came in, we were doing some level of you know, digital distribution just for you know, other companies like the Scholastics or the NBA's or the Red Bulls. But um, there was no theatrical component. The level of the content

or the portfolio was candidly and there wasn't much there. Um. And so when we went into Sundance in two thousand fifteen, you know, we I always joked like there was the new kid on the block tax because you know, you're beening on a movie and what can you what do

you have to show for it? What can you point to to say, hey, trust us on our reputation, you know, give us the movie for X because look at all the other great stuff we've done at that that scenario and that and that festival that wasn't there, so we had to pay you know, the new kid tax on a certain set of movie ease, and then that gave us the content that we needed to deliver and show people over that year what we could do in the

level of capabilities that we had. And then suddenly you're you know what's happened over the years is you build these relationships. You you know, this producer now is this new movie, This director has his has his next film. People talk and at the end of the day, you know, I always say this to people who were pitching on wanting to distribute their film. You can you can literally throw a rock and hit somebody in the space now in the space who's worked with us, and go talk

to him. They'll tell you what the experience has been like. And typically we even because we're not only doing theatricals, we're releasing, you know, we're acquiring somewhere like thirty to forty films, like films like The Party's Just Beginning or Paul Eberstein's um Song of Back and Neck, which just came out last week. Um, these are day and date releases, so they're you know, new York and l A or ten city day and dates. We're picking up thirty to

forty of those. Were distributing another couple of hundred films on digital every year. So what's funny is you can instantly see people who are producing smaller films that we may not put out in theaters and they want the brand, they want the logo on the front of their movie. Like there's a level of UM, awareness, UM and respect based on the brand and the kind of movies we put out. And so it's fun to see. So how

would you define that brand? What what makes the Orchard different than Sony Pictures Classics or Bleaker Street or Neon. What what is your Orchard film? Well, I'd say, um, first and foremost weird, championing, championing, UM, the new voices in film. If you look at a slate of our films, typically one third to half of those films or new filmmakers, new voices, um, you know Bart Layton's American Animals, his

first narrative film, Tycho with TV Yoakim. True. I mean there are filmmakers who, um, they're coming to us in their first you know with Yochim. His first English language film was louder than bombs. Um, we like playing that in that space of to be the first experience with this filmmaker, and let's hope that we do such a great job that we have an opportunity to keep building on that with them. By always my metaphor is like, we're not we're not buying the star pitcher of the

baseball team. We're buying the rookies, and we're hoping to build those rookies into star pitchers. Sometimes those star pitchers will then go to another larger company, which typically happens. I mean, you know, Tycho Tyka does well on his smaller movies and he directs thor Ragnarok, Like, these things happen, and that's okay. But we're very focused on building those relationships, building a family of of talent that, um, we're there in the beginning. Movies that we pick up oftentimes they're

they're not easy. You can't just put them in a box. Like a movie like American Animals is not an easy sell. But the craft of it is so amazing and so entertaining that we like the challenge of trying to figure out how to make audiences aware of these films and and share our passion on those films. We typically don't

um focus on older demo content. If even if you look at something like The Hero with Sam Elliott, it's still had a kind of a youthful energy to it with the rest of the cast with you know, it's a little experimental actually, you know, you know, with Nick Offerman and and so um. You know. So there are companies that are very you know, there are movies that you can look at, you can see at a festival and you know they're going to do just fine. They

have a certain level of cast. If they're a little bit older in their demo, that's those are the folks who they go to movies all day long, you know that like something like a UM you know, like The Wife with Glenn Close or you know, some of the films that Bleaker puts out there. They are solid cast driven. They you just know that they're going to work in

that space. We UM, we recognize that opportunity. But I think we were a bit younger in our sensibilities and UM and we like to challenge ourselves if we're gonna spend all of our waking hours focusing on these films, which we do. UM. We want to. We want to be excited about the both the opera tunity. We like the David versus goliafe mentality of let's you know, find the underdog and and let it, you know, find its audience. UM. You know, every once in a while we'll pick up

something something super commercial. UM. But you know, that's that's kind of like when people talk about the orchards and they talk about the films. They say, the one thing that we know is when I see the logo at the front of a movie that it's a quality film. It's got you know, a certain level of craft to it, and I know that I'm going to, you know, at least walk away. I mean, not love the film, but I'll recognize the fact that it's well made and there's

there's an audience for it. Um. For the most part, it seems like most of your movies are picked up at at festivals. UM. A lot of companies have felt that that's kind of a bit of a dangerous strategy that they can end up getting involved in bidding wars and losing their shirts, so they've gone into producing their own content. UM. Are you going to do that? Are

you doing more of that? Well? We did last summer we produced we funded the whole production of a film called Under the Eiffel Tower, which is you know, it's Gary Cole, it's Matt Walsh, it's reads Uh read Um Read Scott from Veep, Judith gold Wretch from the Overnight Um. It's a light romantic comedy um with a lot of

comedy talent. That was an example of something where the script came to us, the cast was all in place, and you know, if we were going to a festival and trying to pick up that film, we probably would have paid more for it versus funding it and then having all worldwide rights on it. So now that's a film that we'll put out in February day and date with theaters and our own internal team sells it to markets across the world. But I'll say that being said that it is a risk, even pre buys or a risk.

I mean, we've we there was a point in time, especially when we were going to the festivals and these bidding wars were out of control because spud services were also trying to fill their coffers as well, where we said, look we maybe maybe we need to get into some of these movies a little bit earlier, so we don't have to get into these bidding wars, and in some scenarios that those that worked out, and in some scenarios some of those movies, when you finally finally got to

see the film, it wasn't necessarily the film that we had thought we were going to get. And so for us, especially at this point in time in the industry and where things are at um, where there's less there's there's enough content to go around finished content, our focus is definitely more on the finished product space now there will be. If Takoa Tit came to me tomorrow and said, I'm ready to do the sequel to what we do in

The Shadows, we'd write them a check. If you know, there's certain filmmakers that we know what we're getting, and well, we would do that. But I think from approaching like a brand new filmmaker with who's unproven, that's looking for someone to come in and fund the entire production, I think for us it's probably not what we're going to

be doing. So I've always been sort of interested in one of these all night bidding wars that you hear about, and they're always sort of breathlessly and reported, what is it actually like to be kind of in the room. And and also you know, at some point you have to be rational and maybe you just absolutely love a movie, but you realize that the bidding has gotten out of control and you have to walk away. So what is that feeling like too, when you and you have to say,

you know, I'm out. Yeah, it's it's it can be frustrating. I mean, typically you see the movie that you love, the movie, you run back to your house, you start

running the numbers you're running. I mean, for us, we're running the numbers we're doing the comps were quickly because if it's Friday night of Sundance, you want the filmmakers to see that offer that night, because everybody, you know, on the other side of the of the this whole experience, filmmakers watch the offers come in and if it takes three days for somebody to come in on it with an offer, they may not they may be less interested because what looks like it took them too long. They

weren't that passionate about it. So you know, you want to get in an offer quickly. Typically for us, we just have a set of you know, corporate approvals, we have to go through at a certain level. Um. And then you know, the conversation that always happens is the agents. I mean, it's so it's maddening at times because it's like buying a house, a real estate. You don't know you only can you know gauge what they're telling you

as the truth. Um. And there's always like a number that you have to be at if you want to get in the room and pitch the filmmakers. So it's like you send an offer and they say no, it's it's seven figures, or you won't even get a chance to talk to the filmmakers. And that's that's where we win. That's where anybody wins a movie is getting in the room and talking about how you see the film and what you're gonna do with it. So there's that trying

to get in the room. Then there's you know, in the room pitching the filmmakers and the producers on what what you're gonna do with it. And then eventually after the pitching happens, then the agents do their thing and it becomes you know, back and forth where they're constantly trying to get that number up as high as they

can and sometimes you may be the higher number. And I actually like this, Like I I like the scenario that the filmmakers go with a lower number because of the filmmaker, because of the company they want to be with. To me, I'll I'm happy to lose a film that way every day of the week because that it's not just about the dollars. It's about the plan, it's about the people, it's about the release that they're going to,

you know, mount for the film. Um. But you know, there have been many films over the years where it's come down to us in another company, and you you're sometimes you lose it for a hundred thousand dollars because in the moment to your point, you say, I spend as much as I can, I can't go another hundred And then of course, you know, in hindsight, you watch these movies that you lost for a hundred thousand dollars do eight million of the box office, and you say, shoot,

like we it's only a hundred grand, like we should have just you know, but you just it's like eBay, Like I I don't go on eBay anymore because eBay for me is a problem. It's you get sucked into that and you have to you have to know, at least for us, everybody has this. You have a budget, you know what your budget is for the year. You know how many movies you you need to um to buy with that budget, And if you're gonna overspend on one,

you're gonna have to underspend on others. And but it gets it's it's it's tough, especially if it's Monday or Tuesday and Sundance. You haven't picked up anything, and now you found the here's the movie you want, and the bidding is getting to a point where it doesn't make sense for you. You have to make a call like what are you gonna do? Where you're gonna get the rest of your content? But it also seems that sometimes

the price is sort of an albatross for filmmakers. Like I always think, like Happy Texas is in every article about somebody you know overspending it sundance. Was that actually good for them in the end? They may have won that Sundance, But because the movie underperformed at the box office, it has sort of a target on its back. I mean, sometimes it seems very shortsighted of filmmakers too to try to kind of um artificially goose the price tag. I think.

You know, it's interesting, nobody knows at Sundance what a film is going to do. We all know those movies that went from ten to twenty million over the last couple of years that didn't deliver anywhere near that in box office. But in the heat of the moment, I mean all of those movies were great experiences at Sundance. They were films that people loved. And I can see,

I can, I get it. I get in the heat of the moment, I get why movies like you know a Patty Cakes or you know, a Big sick Um why they go for certain numbers because they have these great screenings, um, and you just don't know. Again, it's

like it's it's instinct. You know. My philosophy is you might as well live or die based on your instinct and your passion for something, because putting any other kind of logic behind why you're choosing a movie, it makes as much sense as passion or instinct at the end of the day. And I'd rather fail or succeed based on feeling something for a film and then figuring it out after versus the alternative. Well, Paul, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate you coming in

and sharing your insight. I'll see you at something all right. Thanks for the time, thanks for listening. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of Strictly Business. Hmmm.