Cannes is ending with mixed results. Early market activity indicated how the French festival also wasn’t able to pull the market out of the slump. And now it seems like a classic case of bulls vs. bears. On the one side Variety is reporting ‘Cannes reels in deals,’ but on the other side there’s another piece saying ‘Cannes market signs caution tune.’ Conclusion: some deals, but the dead market isn’t showing much signs of life.

“Some big deals are going down today. But overall, feedback from the market is that it’s somewhat sober,” Cannes director Jerome Paillard said. As at the other festivals this year, everybody is still cautious. Nobody wants to buy another ‘Speed Racer.’ “Too much financing created an insane number of films and more for people to buy, but (ultimately) they pick and choose the movies they want to buy,” ICM exec Hal Sadoff said.

Continue reading False alarm: still SOME deals at Cannes

The market has been slow for the winter and all hopes are now set for Cannes next week. With the market in a slump, the Cannes Film Festival still managed to grow by 8%. The festival is ready to accomodate 9,000 film business men and women from over 90 countries.

Sundance and Tribeca Film Festival didn’t manage to fuel the market earlier this year. Many picture left without a distribution deal, as did Robert De Niro’s ‘What Just Happened?.’ The picture is now closing the Cannes Film Festival, but there’s not much hype left for the movie.

With a 40% growth since 2003, Cannes can’t care too much however. They’ve now added three extra screening rooms to host an impressive 1,600 screenings. I hope you’re not the one going to see movies at Cannes. Because else you might want to start making a selection.

Nobody was in a rush to buy movies at the Tribeca Film Festival the last days. The buyers are there again, but the situation is different this year. “It’s not the heated bidding situation that it used to be because the marketplace is in a slump,” said Peter Goldwyn, vice president of acquisitions for Samuel Goldwyn Films.

The Robert De Niro vehicle “What Just Happened?,” which debuted at Sundance, still doesn’t have a distributing deal. The only movies generating some interest are ‘Trucker’ with Michelle Monaghan and ‘From Within’ with Rumer Willis, the daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore. But sales agent John Sloss isn’t in a rush to sell those either. “We’re hanging back until we can see where the market is and then we’ll trigger it,” he casually noted.

Still, Tribeca is not the place to look for bidding wars. “If something does sell, it’s not going to happen during the festival,” Goldwyn said.