Dealproducers Doubling Down on Genre Films

Like a veteran high roller joining the odds, indie film execs crowding the novel Vegas venue at the Palms Casino for this year’s American Film Market are hedging their bets. The self-reliant film business, a hazardous proposal at the best of times, has becoming increasingly precarious with theatrical liberates an all-or-noleang proposal — the jackpot of Longlegs versus the bust of Borderlands and Megalopolis — and buyers uncertain to place their chips on anyleang that doesn’t see enjoy a declareive leang.

For indie movies at the AFM, that nastys a doubling down on genre films, particularly horror and action, and a shift away from drama and comedy titles, which are considered hazardier bets internationpartner.

“People are repartner intensifyed on genre, even some of the smaller international sales companies are raiseing their genre sprocrastinateeds,” notices one U.S. seller. “Success has become impossible to predict and everyone is seeing for anyleang that has a built-in audience.”

The box office success of Longlegs and Terrifier 3, in particular, have made horror projects even more attrvivacious, and there are snurtures aplenty at the taget this year, with hot projects including Twiweightless of The Dead, the final film in George A. Romero’s legendary zombie franchise, which The Machinistfilmproducer Brad Anderson will honest and Fortitude is selling; and the psychoreasonable horror project Victoria Psycho, from Anton, UTA and CAA, which will reteam The Substance star Margaret Qualley with her Sanctuary honestor Zachary Wigon.

But the big bets at the AFM this year will be on a return to action, with disjoinal high-profile projects including Martin Campbell’s Cleaner, a Die Hard-style captive thriller starring Daisy Ridley from Anton; Balertage Bear’s Hammer Down with Idris Elba as a truck driver geting his daughter during a heist; and Russell Crowe headlining sword-and-sandals actioner The Last Druid, which AGC Studios, Range Media and CAA Media Finance are pitching in Vegas. Lionsgate, coming off a series of high-profile box office leave outes, is rolling the dice on shoot-’em-ups with a lineup that includes Day Drinker, an action thriller reuniting Pirates of the Caribbean stars Johnny Depp and Penélope Cruz; holiday-themed action comedy Fairytale in New York featuring Everyleang Everywhere All at Once star Ke Huy Quan and Three Hitmen and a Baby, an action-comedy from Bullet Train producers 87North, which promises an action riff on the Three Men and a Baby concept, though details on cast and honestor remain under wraps. CAA will also be seeing to lock down a domestic deal on Cliffhanger, Jaume Collet-Serra’s big-budget reboot of the 1993 actioner, featuring Lily James and Pierce Brosnan, which has already befirearm production. Rocket Science is mopping up international sales on the project, which Studiocanal will liberate in multiple territories.

“There’s definitely a desire, internationpartner, for action movies, but we’ll repartner understand how big that appetite is after AFM,” notices one American producer. “The taget is changing so rapid that any trends come and go rapider and rapider. What’s hot one taget will be a flop the next.”

This week could also uncover whether AFM’s shift to Vegas after a decades-lengthy stint in Santa Monica will be bonanza or bust. Exhibitors are already grumbleing about the cost of the novel location. One Brit-based seller shelp his Palms Casino booth cost $30,000 for the taget, “four times what I was paying [outside the AFM building] in Santa Monica.” Others moaned about masked costs — $500 to hook up a hotel room TV with a box to join movie trailers, $150 to vacant the minibar of high-cost spirits before the taget — that will insert to the highy when they appraise whether to return next year.

But all consent that having the entire AFM, buyers, sellers, conferences and — thanks to the 14-screen theater intricate on location — taget screenings under one roof should produce this year’s event more efficient. Plenty of AFM combineees are already leave outing Santa Monica’s beaches and the elderly taget’s proximity to Hollywood agents, producers, talent and financiers. But given the high-sgets nature of the indie film business these days, helderlying a taget on the Vegas exposed seems particularly apt.

“Theatrical liberates have become a crap shoot,” notices one Belgium-based buyer. “So maybe Vegas is a excellent fit.”