← The Town with Matthew Belloni
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A
This episode of the Town is brought to you by Netflix. Presenting Train Dreams. Nominated for four film independent spirit awards including best Picture and best Director Clint Bentley, the Playlist lauds it as a career best performance from nominee Joel Edgerton. Winner of the Critics Choice award for best cinematography. RogerEbert.com raves, it's a film that reached into my heart and soul. You don't just watch it, you breathe it in. And New York Magazine hails Train Dreams the best picture of the year for your awards consideration. This episode is brought to you by Warner Bros. Pictures. Presenting Sinners, written and directed by Ryan Coogler and starring Michael B. Jordan. Hailed as the best picture of the year, the New York Times calls Sinners a big screen exaltation, a passionate, effusive praise song about life and love, including the love of movies. And Timeout says Ryan Coogler's bold vision makes Sinners a true event, an exuberant widescreen experience that that stirs the soul. Sinners is awards eligible in all categories including best picture, best director and best actor. It is Wednesday, January 21st. It's Sundance time. Festival kicks off on Thursday. Craig and I will be there staying in the second worst hotel on Main Street. Say hello if you see us. It's a pretty monumental year for Sundance, the last in the Park City era of the festival. It's kind of hard to believe it's moving to Boulder next year. End of an era. And this is also the first Sundance without its late founder Robert Redford, who passed away in December. They're doing a big celebration of Redford and other stuff is planned this year to commemorate the last go round in Park City. Feels like more people in town are going this year. Helps that this year's festival is kind of stacked. New films from Olivia Wilde, Gregor, Rocky. There's a John Wilson documentary, a Charlie XCX movie, a duplass brother. Gotta have one of those. And new distributors looking to buy films, including Warner Brothers which has a new indie label. Looking for titles. It'll be interesting to see if they're a buyer. Lots to discuss. So I asked Eugene Hernandez to come on the show. Eugene is the Sundance Festival director, which means he's in charge of everything that happens during the 10 day event and all hundred or so movies that are shown. He's been in that job since 2022 and before that he was at the New York Film Festival in Lincoln Center. Before that he was the co founder of Indiewire, the media outlet that covers festivals including Sundance. I've been going to Sundance for almost 20 years. I've got some great memories, so we're going to share some stories and look ahead a little to Colorado in the future of the festival. Today, it's the last Sundance in Park City. From the ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany, and this is the town. Okay. We are here with Eugene Hernandez, who is the festival director of the Sundance Film Festival and a noted Dodgers fan. Welcome on the show.
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B
Go Dodgers. I mean, can you believe. Thank you, Matt. Can you believe it? We're like, what, three under three? No. A little over three weeks away from spring.
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A
I know, I know. And you know what? It's nice. We're going into the season as the evil Empire. Everyone hates us, so it's great. I love it.
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B
It's gonna be a blast, as always. But. Right. We're talking about cold weather and snow. Sundance, so.
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A
Exactly. By the way, would you like to first take a victory lap? I predicted on this very show that Sundance would not leave Park City and that this was all a negotiation. Play with the city. You said at the time, we're pretty serious. And I said, ah, you know what? You'll stay. So take a bow.
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B
If Matt Bellany invites you to take a bow, you take a bow. Although you were absolutely ahead of the curve as well, Matt, I will give you your kudos. You were ahead of the curve on some of the conversations that started to percolate more than a couple years ago now around the future home of the festivals.
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A
Okay, well, now that we've scratched each other's backs for 10 minutes, let's get into this, because I feel like this year at the festival, there's, like, not just nostalgia, but people kind of. They want to go because they want to experience one last time. Not necessarily to relive old times, although I think there'll be some of that, but just to kind of like, take it in and be like, okay, this is a pretty cool thing that exists. I know. I'm certainly going to, like, go to those screenings at the library or Eccles and be like, okay, last time here.
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B
Yeah, I mean, I think I. Look, I think you're right.
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A
Are bookings revealing that? Are they, like, showing that there's increased interest this year?
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B
Yeah, we've seen an uptick in attendance. I'm sure it's a combination of factors. This is a unique moment in the history of this festival. No way of saying it any. You know, can't say it any other way. I think there's an excitement to be part of something that will Be once in a lifetime to put a big weight on it, I guess, in the sense that for so many of us. I know, speaking for myself, I guess, but for so many people in my circle, Sundance in January in Utah has been such a fundamental part of how we navigate the entertainment or film ecosystem, starting here in January.
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A
Like you, it was so genius to put it in January because it really does kick off the year, culturally speaking. Like, you go, you're like, okay, this is how we're starting off our year. And I know it sucks. You're in the middle of the cold weather. And I've always thought that this was some sign of kind of cruel joke that Robert Redford decided to play on all the fake Hollywood people. He knew that, okay, we're going to make them suffer in the middle of the snow. But it really. It just works. And don't you worry a little bit that, like, maybe it won't work in Colorado. Like, I know it's also cold weather, but, like, there's something about Park City and the inconvenience of it all and the weird bus system and all of it that works. Maybe it won't in Colorado.
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B
As someone who runs a film festival and talking to my peers who do the same, I think there's that weight on all of our shoulders, whatever city we're in, that that something's just not going to work. Like, there's something really. I'll be really idealistic from it. There's something really magical about some of these great festivals that we get to go to. Whether it's like, why does the Cannes Film Festival work in the south of France in May?
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A
Why they make me wear a tuxedo.
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B
Every night, and it all works. We put that tuxedo on every night, and we get into the spirit of what that festival is. Or when we're in Telluride in the mountains and at 11,000ft or whatever the hell it is, and we can't breathe. But we're in the mountains in Telluride, and it's just like something else happens, and you just sort of adapt to that experience. I think that's what Sundance has been, and. And frankly, that's what Sundance in Boulder will be.
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A
You think? So you don't think that you're gonna have to kind of re engineer that over five to ten years.
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B
The thing that I will say, things will be different. Like, there is a re engineering that is already happening. We aren't really moving the festival from Utah to Colorado. We're building a festival in Colorado.
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A
Oh, there you go, you're on point. You've been media trained.
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B
Well, I've been thinking about it.
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A
Well, we know why you're doing it. I mean, explain why you're doing it.
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B
I mean, been trying to reframe my thinking around this, Matt. I think the weight of trying to carry something from one place to another, a festival that is so unique to its place. To your point, I'm sitting here in Utah right now, looking out the window at the beautiful mountains and there's not a lot of snow this year. So that's a weird thing. But looking out at where there should be a lot of snow and thinking, you know, when we talk about Boulder and this idea of building something in Boulder, what we're bringing with us is, again, very idealistic. And I really believe in this. What we're bringing with us is the mission and the vision that Robert Redford established in these mountains here in Utah, 40 plus years ago. That's what we take with us. The community here has been great. The community in Boulder is ready to accept us and is inviting us with open arms. So I think that it's a complex relationship when you're trying to build a festival in a community. It can be disruptive, but we try to show up thoughtfully, meaningfully, carefully. The boring stuff to you might be like the. It's like a Frederick Wiseman documentary. Like the meetings you have with city officials talking about, like, parking and logistics and permitting and the stuff that might from the outside look a little, you know, a little dry from the inside. From the inside world of planning a festival is all about trying to create an experience for both the town and also for the folks coming into that town to have a fun time and.
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A
More importantly, to sell more furry cowboy hats. Those are huge.
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B
The furry cowboy hats are. They're real. People show up.
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A
You will see people buy. I don't understand. There's like 10 stores on main street now that sell furry cowboy hats. I blame Taylor Sheridan. All right, so let's talk about. I want to go down memory lane a little bit. Give me your wildest moment in the festival. Just to be clear, you started covering this festival when.
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B
My first time attending was 1993. We launched Indiewire in 1995. So out of the gate. I was a journalist starting in 1995 with IndieWire. And my wildest story actually has to do with being a journalist at Sundance. It's 1997. This is pre Olympics Park City. And that's a really important kind of turning point for this city. And it's going to happen again when the Olympics come back soon. But the Olympics here happened in what, 2000, I guess it was. And that was a big deal. That was like a turning point for this city. And it really, like, put the city on a big map.
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A
But that was post Harvey. Harvey was a dominant force at Sundance in the late 90s.
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B
I mean, there were so many. There was the business of independent film really like the modern business that we talk about today, right? It gets attributed to sex lives and videotape at Steven Soderbergh's Sex Lives and Videotape at Sundance in 1989. So let's flash forward to 1997 for this wild story. There's a movie called Star Maps by Miguel Arteta that plays at the festival produced by Matthew Greenfield, now the head of Searchlight. Right. And we were bootstrapping journalists. Sundance used to have on Main street, this business center where you could go and, like, check your email, which was, you know, then a rarity. And then you could. People could leave cards or invites for you, like to parties. You could actually there was someone who would answer the phone and could take phone messages. And then while you were out, pink pad would write, like, so and so called. They want you to call them. So I'm sitting in there checking my email. The person that answers the phone was like a volunteer at the festival. Screams across the room and knows I'm working at Indiewire. Hey, Eugene, Searchlight just bought star maps for $2.5 million. Screams it across the room. Now, I was just paying attention to my computer where I'm working on a story. And little did I know, sitting next to me was Val Van Galder, who I'm sure listens to the town.
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A
And I know her. She's a longtime marketing executive, long time.
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B
Marketing then at Searchlight. And she hears the same thing that I just heard about her film getting sold. And it's been screamed across the room as she's sitting next to me writing the press release for the announcement that is about to be given to the trades so that it can run in print the next day.
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A
Right?
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B
I have this information. What would Matt Bellany do with this information? Is the same thing I would do with this information is we're going with this immediately. It led to a series of events and a sequence of events that we'll save for another discussion. And Val and I have joked and laughed about this for years since then, where it was like this immediate collision of old and new media and the festival at a turning point and a deal making at A turning point. So Val grabs me and pulls me into her and is like, that's my story. What are you, what's funny going on here? And we, we still laugh about just like that kind of collision of culture.
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A
Yeah. Like, hey, you know what? The Internet's a thing. I think we're going to have to acknowledge this at some point.
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B
They're changing all the business.
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A
That was a little before my time when I started covering the festival. The Internet was definitely a thing and it was pretty heated. The like. It's so funny to think back now that like these journalists in Park City are cutting each other's throats to get the 5 second scoop on what independent label bought a film for a million dollars that few people will ever see.
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B
You guys were duking it out, I mean when you were a reporter, duking it out with Variety, because that currency of getting that information out first.
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A
Totally. It's crazy. And then Deadline started vastly over stating what the purchase price was. So all the agents loved it. So you have to kind of like cut the purchase price in half when you see the Deadline story.
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B
What's that, what's fascinating about it now? I think that world in which those films would sell that quickly and be like acquired for millions of dollars by a bias.
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A
The all night negotiating session.
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B
Those are, those are such. There's so there's actually very few of.
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A
Those stories that doesn't happen because everyone's more diligent about it. And all deals take forever now and it's. You got to, you know, go through all of the various offers and like it doesn't happen like that anymore. So people get to like Tuesday or Wednesday the festival and they're like, oh, nothing's selling. And then stuff kind of trickles in.
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B
We did a study on this this past year. Nearly 70% of the films from last year's festival ultimately sold for distribution. But our Grand Jury prize winner, Atropia by Haley Gates, who's in the moment with Charlie XCX this year, who was in Marty supreme as well, she's an actress as well. That film just sold like a month ago.
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A
Although that's not a good sign when it lasts that long that you're going, you're going for the the Four Wall or the, you know, the bare minimum deal.
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B
To your point. I think that there are just many different ways that these films are getting out to audiences. Whether it's, you know, a partnership deal or it. If the studios aren't buying the films in the same way, you know, the industry is reacting in a different way. And we try to set our metrics at Sundance differently. We try not to. To judge ourselves on the number of films that sell. But, you know, really thinking about where filmmakers, the opportunities that come from filmmakers for their next film or their next film or the things that might happen after that.
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A
My favorite moment, covering the festival. I forget what year this was. Early 2010s. I was in a condo with my colleagues covering everything, and we got a call from a source that said that the police had busted up a party that William Morris was throwing at a, you know, house up in the hills, which was not uncommon. So we had someone there. I texted or emailed at the time and confirmed it and did a story about how the cops had broken up a party that William Morris had thrown. It was like 1, 2 in the morning. And obviously we blasted that out. Apparently, Ari Emanuel, who was not at Sundance but was the owner of William Morris at the time, he called and screamed at the agents that were in charge of that party because it had, you know, made them look bad. And the agent who was in charge of the party, who is now a manager, I will not name him, but he has some big filmmaker clients. He found me at a party the next night and tried to fight me. Fight like, like, like, like old style. Put up your dukes. Fight in a bar.
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B
That's a brave.
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A
How dare you write about this? It was just a party. Why are you writing about this?
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B
For anybody listening who hasn't stood next to Matt Bellamy? He's a tall. He's a tall.
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A
This guy is pretty big, too. And, you know, you're wearing your bulky. You don't know who's buff. You don't know who's not. That was luckily a manager friend of mine stood in the center and deescalated things pretty quickly.
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B
Well, there you go.
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A
Yeah, that. And my second favorite story was the infamous CAA party on Main street where they invited the burlesque troupe. Do you remember this one? This was 2013.
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B
I wasn't there.
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A
You were not there. Okay. This is right when, like, texting everyone at the festival was a thing. The wifi service is good enough. And I got a text of a very risque burlesque dancer that had a hide the kids strap on dildo attached to her and was dancing on stage at the CAA party on Main Street. And this person said, nicole Kidman just left. A couple other people were offended. This is a thing. So I ran over there, and indeed, people were coming out. I don't think people were that offended. I think it became a bigger deal than it was. But of course we had to run the photo. We blurred the crotch so people could not see what the actual offending item was. But that was probably my favorite headline out of Sundance. The CAA party with the risque burlesque dancers that caused clients to leave.
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B
You know what we really hope is that people are coming to the festival to talk about the movies. But to your point, sometimes things get away from.
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A
That's true. All right, so give me your biggest movie oriented moment at the festival. The most impactful discovery, the sort of aha moment of your time there.
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B
So it's 2013 and I was doing a morning radio show here in Utah, so I would attend the festival as a journalist, and then they invited me to do this morning radio show that would go out over npr. And you're getting the pitches ahead of the festival, like, watch this movie, talk to our client, whatever it may be. And Fruitvale Station stood out to me and I was like, Ryan Coogler. Like they were pitching. Like this guy that used to be a football player has become a filmmaker and he's making the story about the neighborhood where he lives in Oakland and about this police killing. And so I invite Ryan. I watched the movie before the festival. His movie hasn't premiered yet. I invite him on the radio show like First Day Park City. And anybody who's ever had a chance to have an extended conversation with Ryan Coogler will know that, that he is just the most thoughtful and beautiful and just like such an engaging conversation, one on one conversation.
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A
I love that he's getting out more during this awards season. He's doing more press. Like every interview he does is great. He should do more.
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B
He deserves it. I mean, Sinners is just like a spectacular film. And so I have this conversation with him and the movie hasn't even premiered yet. Maybe one of his first interviews. He's just starting to find his conversation around this film. And so to me, that. And we developed a bond from that conversation, stayed in touch. I just thought that to me was just a perfect example of how someone can arrive at the festival, one person, and leave an entirely different person.
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A
Yeah, I had a similar experience with Marc Webb, filmmaker, the year of 500 days of summer. Remember that? Now that had a distributor already. I believe Searchlight was already in that one. But I went to the premiere of that one and a friend of mine had. Was representing him and I was in the taxi with him as we left the premiere and the reviews started coming out. And to Be sitting with a Sundance filmmaker when the reviews are hitting is quite an experience because you see, like, this is their career. This is like the moment they could. And the reviews were very, very good. That movie goes on to be a hit. He gets Spider Man. He has a great career.
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B
I mean, it's so great to see those moments happen. And you know, you mentioned Ryan and Sinners and him out in the circuit and you know, we were watching the Golden Globes a couple weeks ago, you know, seeing Chloe Zhao up there, who, you know, and Ryan Coogler, both of whom went through the Sundance labs, you know, Michelle Satter together. Together they were in the same class at the same awards show where Paul Thomas Anderson, who also started out his career at the labs and has shared publicly how meaningful Michelle and the labs were to him at the very earliest stage of his career. To see that longevity and to see those opportunities and moments that happen, that's, that's the ultimate, like, dream that you wish for these filmmakers and that we wish for all the ones that are going to come through this year as well.
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A
This episode is brought to you by HBO Max. Industry is back. The acclaimed HBO original series returns for another thrilling season. When a splashy fintech startup bursts onto the London scene. Harper and Yasmin are drawn into opposing sides of a high stakes financial deal that could bring them both down in the market. Perception is everything. Who is selling the truth and who is dealing in lies? Kiernan Shipka, Max Minghella and Charlie Heaton joined Kit Harington and the cast for the wildest season yet. HBO's Industry is now streaming Sundays at 9pm on HBO Max. This episode is brought to you by Universal Pictures presenting the film Wicked for Good. Directed by John M. Chu, Wicked for Good is the epic, electrifying and emotional conclusion to the untold story of the Witches of Oz. Deadline calls it a masterpiece. And the movie that we need now for your awards consideration in all categories including best Director, John M. Chu, best Actress, Cynthia Eribo, best supporting Actress, Ariana Grande and best picture of the year, Wicked for Good, now playing in theaters. I was going to ask you what your worst party at Sundances but honestly isn't the right answer. All of them, but not great party spaces. It's all people who are like hot and sweaty in their outfits and just like packed into a tight space. The furry cowboy hats and the furry cowboy hats. Yeah.
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B
If I see you at a party this year, it will probably be for a very brief conversation because I don't get to go to a lot of.
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A
Parties and dinners are much better. Um, I will ask you what your wildest celebrity sighting is. The most random celebrity sighting. Mine's Paris Hilton. Anytime you can get a Paris Hilton run in. This was during her heyday as well, when she was, like, bopping from swag suite to swag suite, just, like, with bags of swag.
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B
I was thinking about some of the, like, you know, seeing Al Gore at Sundance with An Inconvenient Truth.
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A
Yeah, the politicians are great. I was once interviewing Redford for Esquire magazine, and Bill Gates just stopped by, and I think he might have been there for Inconvenient Truth or want some. Some documentary that aligned with his interests. And he just stopped by to say hello to Redford, and they're just, like, chatting there. I was like, oh, that's kind of cool.
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B
Bill Gates, Ruth Bader Ginsburg at Sundance, also with a documentary. Like, those are the people that, like, I don't encounter people of that caliber or that experience in my daily life.
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A
All right, so let's get a little to what's planned for this final festival. What are you guys doing differently this time to kind of mark the end of this Park City era for us?
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B
We're thinking a lot about Robert Redford, who passed away in September, and, you know, having this festival in Utah this year. You know, the first festival since his passing. We'll have on this Friday night the gala fundraiser for the institute. We'll honor Chloe Zhao. We'll have Amy Redford, his daughter, who really is kind of carrying the torch for the Redford family and for himself. So that will be the beginning of a number of different events over the course of the next week. But that's always a special moment. And then on the final Friday. So a week after this gala, something that is unique and special is everything we're doing to commemorate the kind of culmination of the festival on that Friday. And Redford shared this phrase with us last year. Everyone has a story. And that kind of became the framing and the kind of the mantra for our festival for this year. So we're actually gonna do a special event on the final Friday with stories. We haven't announced the list yet, but it's a free event for the entire Utah community. There's going to be filmmakers and industry folks and audience members there to kind of share the kind of thing that we're doing now. Some favorite stories, some old photos. It'll just be an opportunity to kind of come together, and it will be the culmination of not Only the festival in Utah, but this week of celebrating Redford, honoring his legacy, celebrating the time in Utah, we've got like a seven or eight legacy screenings like Little Miss Sunshine 20 years later. Got a reunion screening there. House Party, a film that maybe folks haven't seen in a while.
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A
And the team House Party was a Sundance movie.
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B
Party was a Sundance movie.
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A
Wow. Did not know that.
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B
It is restored and it is back and the Hudlin brothers will bring this restoration back to and it'll look and sound like it's never looked and sounded before. So this great selection of films, Saw. James Wan will be here with Spaw. So a great collection of films feel good.
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A
Movies like Saw.
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B
It's a little bit of an expansion. To your point of looking for something different of the legacy program, doing a little bit more because to the earlier point, so many people just want to come and be part of this year's festival. And so we're putting them to work while they're here.
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A
Will there be some kind of a torch passing? Like the mayors of both cities? Like the Boulder mail shows up and starts jogging towards Colorado.
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B
Kim Yutani, our director of programming, is hoping for a snowball fight. So that would be the moment.
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A
How close did you guys get to staying?
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B
Well, it could have been one of three choices. Now, I know you really probably didn't. As much as you thought we were going to stay here, you probably didn't think we would go to Cincinnati either.
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A
And I. I did not. No. That seemed like a joke to me.
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B
It wasn't a joke. Each of those three cities that were in our. In our final running, we could see the festival in any one of those three cities. Salt Lake City is a really great place. There's great culture, there's a great music scene. There's multiple universities. There's like. And we do a summer festival here. You know, we're still anchored in Utah. Our institute is based here. We have the labs. We have a third of our staff who live here in Utah. We do summer programming. So as much as I know you're wanting to, you know, nudge and poke the Park City locals a bit, Mayor. Mayor Nan Worl. Mayor Nan Worl pounded every possible pavement and desk to try to come up with the right, compelling way for us to stay. And we had to think ultimately about what is going to be the best and most sustainable way to continue this festival in the future. And Boulder just made the most sense. But we could have gone in any of those three directions, even though I know you don't Believe us, we really could have, but that was the time.
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A
I think it would have just been the ultimate comedy to make all these fancy Hollywood people fly into an airport in West Virginia to go to Cincinnati.
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B
It's in Northern Kentucky.
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A
Sorry. No, no, no, you're right. Northern Kentucky Airport.
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B
It's like, closer than going from Manhattan to Hoboken. Sure.
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A
Yes, I can. I hear the pitch now. Well, listen, I'm excited to be there. Not gonna lie. I'm very excited for this to be the last year to have to deal with those portion control tops on the booze bottles at every bar that you have to have in Utah. That's one thing I'm looking forward to in Colorado. What's one thing you are looking forward to in Colorado?
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B
You signaled it a second ago. And I think the student.
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A
The booze bottles.
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B
Not the booze bottles. The student. Maybe it's connected, but the student audience there, the 30 students at CU Boulder, the students, you know, at other universities in the. In the broader vicinity, having spent now a lot of time in Boulder, these folks are amped, excited. They are ready to, like, you know, throw open and welcome the doors and welcome everybody. So there's the student community, the tech community, the music vibe in bo, and I think, you know, I hear you saying, like, the challenge of moving a festival from one place to another, but there's so much that's there in Boulder that I think is going to be really special and unique to really help this festival kind of, you know, set its next chapter. And I'm really excited that we get to start doing that after we do this festival here.
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A
All right, sounds great. I know you love all the films equally, but you've seen everything. You know me. Give me a recommendation for a movie that I will love at this year's festival.
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B
So I'm going to recommend Olivia Wilde's film the Invite.
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A
Oh, not I Want yout Sex. That's the one she's in.
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B
She's in. She's in Greg Araki's new film I Want yout Sex. But she acted. It's two couples. So the two couples are. It's Seth Rogen and Olivia Wilde and Ed Norton and Penelope Cruz live in different apartment buildings in San Francisco, one on top of the other. And they decide to have a cocktail party at one of the. One of the couple's houses. And just over the course of the cocktail party, the. The. The realities of their relationships and their lives and how different they are.
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A
Okay, all right. They don't end up murdering each other.
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B
Do they nobody dies.
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A
Okay, great.
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B
Matt, it's hilarious. It's so well written. Rashida Jones co wrote it.
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A
All right, I'm in. I'm in. Thank you. I will be there. All right, Eugene, thank you very much. Look forward to seeing you around the festival.
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B
Thank you, Matt.
- [27:43]
A
We are back with the call sheet. Keep it on Sundance here. Craig, why are you so interested in this Charli XCX movie? The moment. We gotta go see the moment.
- [27:53]
B
I mean, Charli xcx, she's at the.
- [27:55]
A
Center of pop culture.
- [27:57]
B
Brat Summer on the big screen, who wouldn't want that?
- [27:59]
A
It's basically a thinly veiled version of her like Brat Summer. To be honest, a lot of the more, I don't know, comedic, salacious stuff at Sundance I am interested in, and that might be my 31 year old.
- [28:11]
B
Male brain, but a lot of the.
- [28:12]
A
Comedies this year, they look fun. And Sundance can sometimes be a little.
- [28:16]
B
Bit more serious and depressing. So I'm excited for the more comedic movies.
- [28:20]
A
I know that's where we are in the culture is that if you make a comedy, it's got to go to Sundance. It can't be a studio movie anymore. Yeah, there's a lot of interesting stuff and you know, there's a lot of interesting buyers there. I think this new company that Megan Calligan is running, she was formerly at Paramount and imax, she's got this company, Roque, that she's running content for their new distributor, Black Bear. The Teddy Schwartzman Company, he's been on the show. They are now in distributing movies. So they may be a buyer at the festival, although I think they're primarily going to do their own stuff that they produce. But the most interesting new buyer at the festival this year is Warner Brothers of all studios. Like this is the biggest granddaddy of traditional Hollywood studios that got rid of its independent arm and almost 20 years ago now they hired these guys from Neon Christian Parks and a bunch of other guys that are going to be buying festival films. It's kind of nuts. And my prediction is that Warner Brothers will have the biggest or one of the biggest sales at Sundance. They'll find the most commercial movie and they'll pay 5, $10 million for it. Add it to the Warner slate and it'll be the biggest of the.
- [29:31]
B
Why does Warner Brothers not have their own focus features right now? Why are they just getting one now?
- [29:37]
A
Well, they used to and it was called Warner Independent Pictures. They just decided that that was not their business. They, I believe it was a Jeff Robinoff decision when he was running Warner Brothers that they were going to focus on bigger budget, tentpole style blockbuster films, did not need to deal with those kinds of smaller movies that needed more attention. And it was shut down in 2008. So it's been, what, 17, 18 years since they've had it. They have New Line Cinema, which is, you know, had its roots as an indie studio, but is now basically a genre label. And it also had Picture House, which was another smaller, independent style label. But they haven't really been in the Searchlight or Focus or Sony Classics business. And I think the leadership there, they decided they wanted to do that. They want more movies to put through their pipeline.
- [30:30]
B
They.
- [30:31]
A
They've got this streaming service in HBO Max. They're paying a boatload of money for the A24 movies to license those. And they probably think, hey, we could pick up some movies that are in that low budget genre or kind of indie style feel and get some value out of it. Maybe get. Win some awards. Great opportunity to go get some horror film that's affordable.
- [30:50]
B
Or a comedy. Horror.
- [30:52]
A
Horror thing. Yeah, yeah. They're looking for their Saw. The fact that Saw was a Sundance movie and has now had 20 sequels or whatever we're on, that's a gift that keeps on giving. And Paranormal Activity was a Sundance movie as well, I believe. So it makes a lot of sense. But I mean, honestly, like, the big bidder is Netflix, that they're gonna have to go up against Netflix if they want a movie. They just are like, okay, we'll pay $10 million for train dreams, and then they craft an awards campaign out of it, and it does pretty well for them. So they are the kind of default for when a movie goes to Sundance and they want a big deal.
- [31:27]
B
Like Fair Play is another good example that Netflix bought.
- [31:29]
A
Yeah, Fair Play, exactly. The year before that was a big Sundance and that went to Netflix. But as we know, these filmmakers tend to like theaters, and if you can offer them theatrical release along with the prospect of it going to HBO Max, not bad. That's what a lot of these filmmakers do want. So I think Warner Brothers is going to have a big festival. We'll see, though. All right, that's the show for today. I want to thank my guest, Eugene Hernandez, producer Craig Horlebach, art director Jesse Lopez, and I want to thank you. We'll see you one more time this week for Oscar nominations. Oscar nominations are coming this time of year. Everyone talks about going dry, but at.
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B
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A
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B
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A
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