Buyers more cautious at Sundance Film Festival

This year’s Sundance Film Festival didn’t produce a blizzard, but it did generate some strong flurries.

Spending on movies at the Park City, Utah, film bazaar failed to reach the sky-high levels of 2011 or match the hype that preceded the annual gathering of filmmakers, executives and agents. More than a dozen deals had closed by Friday for an amount totaling about $20 million. Last year, the total dollar amount was upward of $30 million — believed to be among the highest figures in the festival’s history.

But Hollywood’s biggest annual market for independent films in this snowy mountain resort town was far from a flop, with total festival business outpacing dollars spent in prior years. Nearly every major buyer purchased at least one movie — they simply paid less for them, mindful that many of the high-profiles sales of 2011 didn’t pan out at the box office.

The Sundance Film Festival, which wraps up Sunday, is usually regarded as a barometer for the health of the overall independent film industry. Brisk sales generally reflect a boom market, while slow sales suggest a larger downturn. This year’s market indicates that the business is hardly in its heyday, but also offered some encouraging signs.

“There were a lot of films acquired by companies who felt belief in them,” said Tony Safford, worldwide acquisitions chief for Fox Searchlight. “But it seems reasonable. No one was looking at each other and shaking their heads saying they overpaid.”

Searchlight was responsible for the festival’s most lucrative deal. The News Corp.-owned specialty film unit bought worldwide rights to “The Surrogate,” a drama starring John Hawke about a disabled man who hires a sex surrogate, for an estimated $6 million.

Searchlight believes the high price tag was offset by the fact that the movie’s ultimately uplifting quality gives it potential commercial appeal both here and overseas.

The company paid a lot less to acquire one of the most critically lauded movies at Sundance, “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” a magical-realist drama set on the Louisiana Bayou.

Other notable deals from the past week included Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions joint purchase of the Richard Gere financial drama “Arbitrage” ($2.5 million), Focus Features’ acquisition of the Ari Graynor raunchy phone-sex comedy ‘For a Good Time, Call…”

($2 million), CBS Film’s Bradley Cooper novelist drama “The Words” ($2 million) and Sony Pictures Classic’s Rashida Jones romantic dramedy “Celeste and Jesse Forever” ($1-2 million). Several titles were still in play as of Friday night, though big-ticket deal making was thought to be largely complete.

Although several other companies walked away with films — Magnolia, IFC and Millennium Entertainment — Harvey Weinstein, historically the festival’s most aggressive buyer, sat pat. Weinstein Co. has made acquisitions at nearly every recent major film festival. Last year, Weinstein spent a combined total of nearly $15 million for two films, “Our Idiot Brother” and “The Details.”

Weinstein Co. Chief Operating Officer David Glasser attributed the studio’s hesitancy to a combination of what he felt was the lack of marketability of available titles and his company’s crowded release calendar.

“It’s a little different for us in 2012. We have a very robust year,” he said, alluding to new in-house productions from directors Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson and David O. Russell that are due out in the fall. “We came in looking for something big for theatrical, and there were a lot of great titles, but nothing fit the part for us.”

Glasser did say that the company was interested in the Stephen Frears-directed Las Vegas film “Lay the Favorite” and the raunchy Kirsten Dunst wedding-weekend comedy “Bachelorette.” Both titles are still available, and Glasser said that if the Weinstein Co. acquired them it will make the movies a day-and-date release in theaters and on cable systems’ on-demand services.

Graham Taylor, who heads the independent film division at talent agency William Morris Endeavor, said, “People want to see movies on a lot more platforms than they once did, and I think distributors are really starting to pick up on that.”

Taylor spearheaded the sale of “Arbitrage,” which Roadside and Lionsgate also aim to take out simultaneously in theaters and on cable systems.

Another distinguishing aspect of this year’s festival is that it was the first time in recent memory that no movie in either the premieres or the U.S. dramatic competition sections came with distribution in place.

But, as Safford wryly noted, “availability doesn’t mean quality.”

steve.zeitchik@latimes.com