The Hollywood Reporter - 06.11.2019

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THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 112 NOVEMBER 6, 2019

WEISZ: DAN MACMEDAN/GETTY IMAGES. FIRTH: DANIELE VENTURELLI/GETTY IMAGES. WATERHOUSE: ROY ROCHLIN/GETTY IMAGES. HADDISH: JON KO

PALOFF/FILMMAGIC.

PLATFORM

: COURTESY OF TIFF. KITSCH: RICH POLK/GETTY IMAGES.

AFM

name directors, and this high-

concept sci-fi from Blomkamp

(District 9) fits the bill. Kitsch

plays a cop in New Mexico on the

trail of an alien killer.

SEANCE

SALES Dark Castle Entertainment,

HanWay Films

DIRECTOR Simon Barrett

TA LE N T Suki Waterhouse

BUZZ This directorial debut of Blair

Witch screenwriter Barrett ticks

the teen chiller boxes with a story

of a new student at an all-girls

academy who is drawn into par-

ticipating in a deadly seance.

A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP

SALES Cross City Films

DIRECTOR Bert & Bertie

TA LE N T Rachel Weisz

BUZZ Weisz plays Hollywood icon

Elizabeth Taylor in this biopic

produced by The King’s Speech

shingle See Saw Films and

directed by South African female

duo Bert & Bertie (Tr o o p Z e r o).

SUPERNOVA

SALES The Bureau

DIRECTOR Harry Macqueen

TA LE N T Colin Firth, Stanley Tucci

BUZZ Macqueen’s follow-up to

acclaimed 2014 debut Hinterland

has quality art house written

all over it. Firth and Tucci play a

longtime couple, one of whom has

early-onset dementia, who head

off on a road trip across England.

F

or the independent film industry — the motley crew of produc-

ers, financiers, sales agents and international distributors that

descend on Santa Monica in early November for the American

Film Market — it is the best of times and the worst of times. There’s

arguably never been more money sloshing around the entertain-

ment industry. New deep-pocketed SVOD services — Disney+, Apple

TV+ and WarnerMedia’s HBO Max, among them — have entered the

market alongside established big spenders Netflix

and Amazon. And a recent report by Ampere Analysis

found global TV spend on content — including films

— has exploded, growing nearly $50 billion in the past

five years alone. But the traditional theatrical busi-

ness, particularly in North America, is under pressure.

Whatever you think of Martin Scorsese’s rant against superhero flicks,

it’s a fact that studio blockbusters are squeezing independent movies

out of cinemas.

“I see a lot of opportunities, but there are not that many truly theatri-

cal movies out there that are available,” says veteran sales agent Brian

O’Shea, of international sales company The Exchange. “And the price

point, if you don’t have a theatrical release, is going lower and lower, to

the point that there’s no financial benefit in even bringing it to market.”

But for the few films that do break through and secure global dis-

tribution deals at AFM, the financial rewards may be bigger than ever.

Here are THR’s picks of the cream of this year’s crop.

From left: Rachel Weisz, Colin Firth, Suki

Waterhouse, Tiffany Haddish and Taylor Kitsch

THE MARKET: NON-ENGLISH TITLES THRIVE OVERSEAS

Netflix and a newfound appetite for art house fare in China are driving a boom in local-language releases

E

ven as American indies are proving a harder sell

internationally, a new market is opening up for foreign-

language titles, driven by the power of Netflix — and the

People’s Republic.

Reed Hastings’ streaming giant, in its aggressive push

to localize in every one of the more than 190 countries

it operates in, has become the largest buyer of non-

English-language films worldwide. Recent acquisitions

include international feature Academy Award contend-

ers Atlantics (from Senegal), Joy (Austria) and Chiwetel

Ejiojor’s The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (submitted

for the Oscars by the U.K.), as well as Spanish-language

sci-fi thriller The Platform, one of the genre hits in Toronto

this year. At a recent industry conference in Zurich, Wild

Bunch boss Vincent Maraval noted that Netflix has

become “the biggest client of the French cinema by far”

and has “opened up a tremendous

market” for non-English cinema.

That market, so far, has not extended

to China, one of the few territories where

Netflix is still unavailable. But a boom

in exhibition in the Middle Kingdom

has created an opening for indie film

that didn’t exist a mere three years ago.

Nadine Labaki’s Arabic-language drama

Capernaum grossed a phenomenal

$54.3 million in China, and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s 2018

Cannes Palme d’Or winner, Shoplifters, a Japanese family

drama, earned an impressive $14 million, more than four

times its U.S. gross of $3.3 million.

“It’s easier to get international,

non-American content in,” says Dede

Nickerson, of Chinese group Huanxi

Media, noting the ongoing Trump-

fueled trade war between the U.S. and

China. “Japanese content, Spanish-

language content, European films are

getting much more play, and I think

that will be growing.” — S.R.

American

Film Market

Nov. 6-13

Santa Monica

Can Indies Survive the Streaming

Age? There’s never been more demand

for content, but the all-important

big-screen bow is a long shot By Scott Roxborough

Netflix picked up the Spanish-language

sci-fi thriller The Platform in Toronto.

HERE TODAY

SALES Rocket Science

(international) CAA (U.S.)

DIRECTORS Billy Crystal,

Alan Zweibel

TA LE N T Billy Crystal,

Tiffany Haddish

BUZZ Billed as a May-September

romantic comedy without the

romance, this broad-strokes lark

is looking to target the lucrative

mature moviegoing audience

with a story of a veteran comedy

writer (Crystal) who befriends a

talented New York street per-

former (Haddish).

INFERNO

SALES AGC Studios (international),

CAA (co-representing U.S./China)

DIRECTOR Neill Blomkamp

TA LE N T Tay l o r K i t s c h

BUZZ International buyers are hun-

gry for big-budget features from