William Goldman’s adage that “nobody knows anything” never gets old.
If studios and financiers knew what was going to work every time, everyone would be rich and the industry would be a lot less interesting.
The old saying reared its head today at the Zurich Summit when filmmakers and brokers behind the year’s horror phenomena Backrooms and Obsession admitted that they didn’t know their films were about to go stratospheric. There’s absolutely no shame in admitting that. No one knew quite how enormous both films would become, even if many clearly believed in the films and the filmmakers.
“You know, it’s funny,” CAA Media Finance Co-Head Roeg Sutherland mused during a panel on the independent business. “We have a colleague in our department who sold Obsession. I can promise you, we had no idea that Obsession was going to become Obsession.”
CAA co-repped the domestic deal with Capstone, selling the Curry Barker-directed movie out of Toronto for around $14M to Focus. The film went on to make a staggering $264M in the U.S. alone off a $1M budget. It took $520M global.
But believing in a filmmaker is where it starts, added Sutherland.
“I think the most important thing, is less about IP and genres, though those things can be important, but it’s always about the filmmaker. Whether it’s an established filmmaker or a discovery, it has to be someone that you’re willing to go on a ride with. You never know what’s going to happen. But that’s the central element that will decide whether a movie is gonna be good or bad. The filmmaker is the person you’re betting on.”
In an earlier panel, Backrooms director Kane Parsons was asked whether he contributed to the distribution and marketing of the A24 smash. While A24 clearly mounted a brilliant campaign, Parsons admitted that there was a level of uncertainty over what the film could do and who exactly it would reach.
“The truthful answer,” the 20-year-old said about the horror film that took a whopping $400M global off a $10M budget, “is that I don’t think there was a real sense of what it would be prior to the release of the film. I don’t. Even at the height of projections.”
Parsons added that he didn’t know whether the film would truly click with fans of the creepypasta genre, but that he “liked to think we did the core idea that they were expecting.” Clearly he did, and plenty more.
Later in the day, CAA Media Finance co-head Sarah Schweitzman also noted the serendipitous element to this summer’s record-breaking $4.7BN domestic box office. But also to the success speaking to a desire for authenticity and irreverence.
“When you look at the landscape today, the movies were so amazing this year, and they’re so different to what they’ve ever been, and unexpected in achieving the success that they’ve they’ve achieved. There is no way in which you can categorize the film business as unhealthy, because it’s burgeoning, it’s booming. I think that also speaks to where we are politically. There’s a lot time for irreverence. It’s a time for saying things that are maybe unpopular or maybe scary, but there’s a real underground belief and desire to hear the truth, which is not necessarily something that everyone is encouraged to do right now.”
