The Slowest Sundance Ever? How the Festival Left Buyers Cold

variety.com ^ | 1/25/2018 | Brent Lang and Ramin Setoodeh

[rktman]

Although a handful of movies had their moment in the spotlight, the 2018 edition of the Sundance Film Festival received bad reviews from many of the Hollywood dealmakers who trudged up the mountains of Park City, Utah, looking to find the next indie sensation.

“Awful,” was the frank assessment of one studio executive. “Boring,” was the takeaway of another. “Who are these movies for?” griped an influential distributor.

After a week of premieres at the Eccles Theatre and the other makeshift movie palaces that line the snowy resort town, buyers complained that the movies in this year’s lineup were chronically weak, leaving them underwhelmed and frequently annoyed. That combined with the stark economic realities of the independent film business — where even great movies struggle to sell enough tickets to break even — made for a festival where the most common word heard around town was “pass.”

[Cecily]

“The Crown” is good even if it is historically inaccurate in many ways. Still a watchable story.

[Tenacious 1]

Now wait! Spielberg is going to “re-make” West Side Story. What was the last movie made that wasn’t a “remake” of some sort?

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Thanks. Netflix keeps pitching it to me when I log on. I just finished the last season of Longmire and looking for something new and good to watch.

I just borrowed “Old Yeller” from Netflix DVD! How’s that for a childhood throwback?

[DakotaGator]

...buyers complained that the movies in this year’s lineup were chronically weak, leaving them underwhelmed and frequently annoyed.

Gee. How about that?! Maybe the ultimate buyers, movie ticket purchasers, think the same about all the SJW PC garbage being put into theaters.

[OKSooner]

The Crown is good, IMO. Claire Foy plays a very believable Queen Elizabeth II, and there's a surprisingly positive portrayal of a young Billy Graham visiting England.

Two seasons in, and as time marches on Elizabeth and Philip will be portrayed be different, older actors.

One worries about Margaret though, she's angry with Elizabeth and she always has a cigarette in her hand.

Oh yeah, back to the subject... Sundance... I'm so sorry for Mr. Redford that his film festival is beginning to wane... /s

[Let's Roll]

Gee, I wonder where the word "movies" comes from.

Could it be the word "MOVE". /s

If the public wants to see a story that takes place on 1 or two sets, they will go to a play.

[E.Allen]

If you liked Longmire, check out Wind River

[ClearCase_guy]

There is a French film from 1962 called “La Jettee” which Terry Gilliam remade as “12 Monkeys” starring Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt.

The original French film is actually a series of slides (B&W) with a narration by a man we never see. There is only one scene with any motion at all — at one point we see a woman blink. That’s it.

I actually find the original French version quite compelling, but I truly love “12 Monkeys”. I have strange taste in film.

[wally_bert]

High Castle is great stuff.

What will OGF (?) Smith do next?

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Thanks. Will do!

[arrogantsob]

“Breaking Bad” was amazing.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I resisted “Breaking Bad” out of sheer hatred for drugs, drug manufacturers, and dealers. But I broke down and watched it — indeed, it was amazing. I also watched Season 1 of Narcos which was fascinating, too. Unfortunately, Narcos is now playing throughout Mexico, close to home.

[arrogantsob]

I had the same attitude more or less as you and refused to watch BB I watch very little TV except sports, history and cartoons. My girlfriend kept bugging me to watch it so after the shows stopped running I bought a dvd and was blown away.

It was then buying them all and binge watching.

How can you not like a show where the “hero” is standing in the road in his underwear with a 45 waiting for an expected showdown with the cops?

[Cecily]

Breaking Bad was an interesting story because so many of the characters like Saul, Gus, Jesse’s friends, Gomez, and assorted strange drug dealers were interesting to watch. They were often held my interest more than the main characters (particularly Walter’s family members, who I found annoying).

[RayChuang88]

The problem is that Sundance has become the worst of the cultural bubble defined by the entertainment industry based in New York City and Los Angeles. No wonder why even Hollywood would rather do TV series for Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video instead.

[RitaOK]

HA!HA!HA! Isn’t that the truth.

I would love to see a credible version of THE “POST”, but with Streep playing Katherine Graham, this ‘ain’t it”.

Never, ever, will Streep movies, or re-runs, get a cent of mine. Hope it goes broke.

[HombreSecreto]

I have hopes! One is a mid-budget, but the others are definitely low-budget indies.

The focus was to write the low-budget scripts that could be actually be made here in the Midwest (where I’m currently located) and submitted to festivals like Sundance.

However, beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

For those who *might* be interested, here are the titles/loglines:

NEPHILIM (Grounded SciFi/Thriller) - An anthropologist is recruited by the CIA to join a Special Forces team on a secret mission to the Brazilian rainforest where a Chinese expedition was exterminated by Sasquatch, but the team discovers far more than expected.

The tagline for this one is: All the giants didn’t die in the Great Flood.

This one placed in a SciFi contest in 2016. The current draft is much stronger and I’m submitting to that contest again as well as perhaps the Austin Film Festival.

THE WANDERER (Thriller) - A young pastor struggles to keep his church alive aided by a mysterious itinerant laborer. I might enter this one in the Nicholl Fellowship and see how it does.

Now to be honest, this one has a touch of PC as one of the antagonists is a real estate developer, but is more of a red herring to conceal the ultimate antagonist.

The last one is a satire.

MUSICAL CHAIRS - A confident naive engineer struggles against competitors both inside and outside his company to learn the realities of life and how to survive on his own terms.

My current script is a dramedy. About 1/2 way done with the first draft.

[RitaOK]

< “ Well MY scripts aren’t! “ >

That is why they are unknown?

You are to be applauded for stories that are hopefully cerebral, rather than a clone of the disgusting trend for virtue free productions, today. Best of luck with the producers.

[LibertarianLiz]

Awful,” was the frank assessment of one studio executive. “Boring,” was the takeaway of another. “Who are these movies for?” griped an influential distributor

I have made the very same comments over the last few years. A lot of the time, I don't go to the movies anymore because I never see anything that they are showing that I am at all interested in.

[cymbeline]

““The Crown” is good even if it is historically inaccurate in many ways. Still a watchable story.”

On the whole it is very good but the “Matrimonial” episode is mostly soft porn. Netflix manages to get dirty stuff into everything it does. Maybe this is a statement about its audience. Maybe I’m a prude.