Sundance Winners and Losers
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Sundance winners and losers, titlecard
If you're an indie filmmaker, and you want to sell your film to a distributor, there's no better place to be than the Sundance Film Festival. And if you're a film distributor, Sundance is one of the hottest markets for spending little and winning big. Bidding wars occur regularly, and occasionally turn ugly. Like in 1996, when Harvey Weinstein of Miramax shoved and verbally attacked Fine Line Features head Jon Taplin over the rights to distribute the movie "Shine." Weinstein had to be physically escorted out of the restaurant by two waiters and the manager! "Shine" turned out to be well worth the bid, garnering 8 Academy Award noms and earning over $35 million at the box office, but make no mistakes about it: there is no science to turning a profit in the indie film racket. For every "Shine" success story, there are a hundred Sundance flicks you've never heard of and probably never will. There's a lot of numbers to balance, including acquisition price, marketing budget, and production costs, but the bottom line is box office. With such numbers in mind, here's a gallery of some of the best and worst Sundance bets ever:
The box office winners and losers to come out of Sundance.
