14 Buzzy Films for Sale in Toronto, and What It Means for the Indie Film Market
Let’s see if those famously kind Canadian audiences can convince Hollywood studios and streamers to bring the indies of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival back with them through customs.
As always, a promising crop of star-studded films are headed to TIFF in search of distribution. Some have tantalized audiences in Venice or Telluride, some showed only brief glimpses of their wares to early suitors in Cannes, and some are on the ground over the next week to make splashy debuts just in time for awards consideration.
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“We’re still feeling the hangover of the past few years. The lingering impact of COVID, and of course the strikes,” said Jessamine Burgum, who runs the indie production shop Pinky Promise with partner Kara Durrett. The pair are in town with one of the most buzzed-about projects of the year, “The Last Showgirl” starring Pamela Anderson in a tale of redemption and sequined headdresses.
“You have to be a believer,” Durrett said of the market, which she anticipates will be active but not quite back up to fighting weight. Burgum said wisely and a bit wearily, “which is another word for delusional. And we are.”
In conversations Variety had with multiple top sales agencies, a common silver lining emerged: in-house production is down across the board at the legacy studios and streamers, mostly thanks to the paralytic effect of the 2023 actor-and-writer strikes. This means buyers are desperate for finished product they can offer subscribers and moviegoers.
Here are over a dozen of the strongest titles going to market:
The Assessment
Cast: Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Olsen, Himesh Patel
Director: Fleur Fortune
Sales Agents: UTA, WME
Why Buyers are Circling: Fortune’s latest is part of a budding genre of dystopian dramas about how and when human reproduction occurs – and the permission it requires – in a not-too-distant future. Here, Vikander stars as an official who decides what couples have the right to bear children after a 7-day evaluation.
On Swift Horses
Cast: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jacob Elordi, Will Poulter, Diego Calva
Director: Daniel Minahan
Sales Agents: UTA, Black Bear
Why Buyers are Circling: Director Minahan’s prestige TV credits (“Game of Thrones,” “Six Feet Under,” “Fellow Travelers”) are applied here to the story of a couple whose post-Korean War existence is disrupted by the arrival of a seductive and dangerous relative (Elordi).
Friendship
Cast: Tim Robinson, Paul Rudd, Kate Mara, Jack Dylan Grazer
Director: Andrew DeYoung
Sales Agents: Fifth Season, UTA
Why Buyers are Circling: Robinson, the king of modern cringe comedy, is dipping his toe into leading man territory with this feature from DeYoung (though we’re promised all of his anxiety-inducing quirks are still intact). The film follows a painfully average man whose new TV weather man neighbor (Rudd) awakens the competitive beast within.
Don’t Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight
Cast: Lexi Venter, Embeth Davidtz
Director: Embeth Davidtz
Sales Agent: CAA
Why Buyers are Circling: Davidtz is one of the most pedigreed character actors in the business. From “Bridget Jones’ Diary” to “Mad Men” to cult horror classics like “13 Ghosts,” Davidtz steps behind the camera for the first time to adapt the true story of a young girl who comes of age during the Rhodesian bush war.
The Brutalist
Cast: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Joe Alwyn, Alessandro Nivola
Director: Brady Corbet
Sales Agents: CAA, Protagonist (*Focus Features already has international)
Why Buyers are Circling: Indie darling Corbet (“Vox Lux,” “The Childhood of a Leader”) is back with a long and punishing tale of the American Dream, and its limitations. It follows a brilliant architect fleeing postwar Europe in the late ‘40s, as he encounters a wealthy and mysterious client who forever changes the course of his life and his art.
The Last Showgirl
Cast: Pamela Anderson, Kiernan Shipka, Brenda Song, Dave Bautista
Director: Gia Coppola
Sales Agents: CAA, Goodfellas, Utopia
Why Buyers are Circling: Tongues have been wagging about this title since earlier this year, poised as an unexpected and rewarding dramatic turn from Anderson, playing a dancer whose long-running Las Vegas review is suddenly shut down. Buyers got a brief look at Cannes, but the completed film debuts here with big expectations and bigger buzz.
The Life of Chuck
Cast: Tom Hiddleston, Karen Gillan, Jacob Tremblay, David Dastmalchian, Chiwetel Ejiofor
Director: Mike Flanagan
Sales Agents: UTA, FilmNation
Why Buyers are Circling: Hiddleston is overdue for a star turn in the American market, and here gets his chance with director Flanagan (no stranger to the horror genre thanks to films like “Doctor Sleep” and “The Haunting of Hill House”). Based on a novella from Stephen King, the film unspools across three chapters in the life of an ordinary man. Given the creative talent involved, we expect anything but ordinary.
All of You
Cast: Brett Goldstein, Imgoen Poots
Director: William Bridges
Sales Agent: MRC
Why Buyers are Circling: Hot off “Ted Lasso,” Goldstein co-wrote and stars in this romance, set in a near future where people can take a test matching them with their soulmates. Poots plays Goldstein’s character’s best friend, who stirs something profound in him.
The Deb
Cast: Charlotte MacInnes, Natalie Abbott
Director: Rebel Wilson
Sales Agent: WME
Why Buyers are Circling: Perhaps the noisiest title walking into the festival thanks to a contentious legal battle between the director and her producers, Wilson makes her directorial debut with this musical comedy – an empowering story of two cousins in a small town looking for acceptance.
K-Pops
Cast: Anderson .Paak, Soul Rasheed
Director: Anderson .Paak
Sales Agency: WME
Why Buyers are Circling: Grammy-winning musician Paak makes his feature directorial debut and stars opposite his real-life son Rasheed, in this family drama about a washed-up drummer who struggles to reconnect with his long-lost child.
Nutcrackers
Cast: Ben Stiller, Linda Cardellini, Tim Heidecker
Director: David Gordon Green
Sales Agency: UTA
Why Buyers are Circling: Stiller’s day job overseeing the streaming hit “Severance” has kept him largely off-screen. Here, he returns with a starring role in this heartwarming look at a workaholic who becomes an unexpected caregiver to his orphaned nephews.
The Penguin Lessons
Cast: Steve Coogan, Jonathan Pryce, a penguin
Director: Peter Cattaneo
Sales Agency: CAA, Rocket Science
Why Buyers are Circling: Coogan plays a cynical teacher instructing privileged students in 1970s Argentina. His social conscience is reawakened, though, when he rescues a penguin from an oil-slicked beach. The uplifting movie (complete with an adorable avian co-star) was directed by Cattaneo, known for finding the balance between humor and heart in “The Full Monty.”
Relay
Cast: Lily James, Riz Ahmed
Director: David Mackenzie
Sales Agents: CAA, UTA, Black Bear
Why Buyers are Circling: James plays a would-be whistleblower who harbors a trove of explosive secret documents involving her employer. But after being mercilessly harassed by a black ops team engaged by the company, she hires a middleman, played by Ahmed, to return the docs. What ensues is a cat-and-mouse game in which nothing is as it seems, including morals.
The Luckiest Man in America
Cast: Paul Walter Hauser, Shamier Anderson, David Straithairn
Director: Samir Oliveros
Sales Agents: Protagonist, CAA
Why Buyers are Circling: Oliveros takes audiences back to the 1980s, when “Press Your Luck,” a hugely popular game show, ruled the airwaves. At least until a contestant named Michael Larson (Hauser) appeared on the program. Somehow this unemployed ice cream truck driver from Ohio went on a winning streak that broke the game.
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