THE DISTRIBUTORS 2019: AMAZON STUDIOS
Last Friday I talked about Netflix and it's no secret that streaming platforms have changed the landscape when it comes to film festivals, Oscar and T-ride. Amazon Studios has also been a huge player in that transition and as such has become, over the last three years, an outfit to be noticed when trying to handicap The SHOW as well as the Oscar race.
Amazon had serious Oscar players last year with Cold War (Three Oscar nominations including Best Director) and in 2016 with Manchester by the Sea (which allowed Casey Affleck to win the Oscar for Best Actor and Kenneth Lonergan to win for Best Original Screenplay).
Amazon Studios Telluride resume is small but mighty:
2018: Peterloo, Cold War
2017: Wonderstruck
2016: Manchester by the Sea
And here were my numbers attempting to predict their chances at Telluride for 2018. I posted the Amazon picks on June 21st last year.
Peterloo- 75%
Cold War- 50%
Beautiful Boy 40%
Photograph- 30%
Life Itself- 20%
And, as you can see, the high percentages for Peterloo and Cold War panned out.
Looking at this year, Amazon's potential for T-ride inclusion is substantial. As of today, they have at least five films that are part of the conversation:
Against All Enemies/Andrews
The Goldfinch/Crowley
Les Miserables/Ly
Radioactive/Satrapi
The Report/Burns
Andrews, Crowley and Satrapi have all had films play at Telluride previously each with a single film:
Andrews: 2016: Una
Crowley: 2003: Intermission
Satrapi: 2007: Persepolis
On Friday last week, you may have noticed that I listed Crowley's The Goldfinch as one of my ten "If I Had To" list. The Goldfinch is actually split between Amazon and Warner Bros.
Consequently, The Goldfinch leads the Amazon list in terms of chances to play T-ride in 2019 but each of the five films have a serious chance to make it.
The chances:
The Goldfinch 60%
Radioactive 50%
Les Miserables 40% (Cannes prize winner: Jury Prize)
Against All Enemies 40%
The Report 35% (played Sundance but so did Manchester by the Sea...see below)
Tomorrow, I'll take a stab at evaluating the lineup from Focus Features.
THE REPORT RELEASE
Adam Driver in The Report (via IMDb)
The Report was very well received at its original screening at Sundance in February (94% at Rotten Tomatoes) and since then I have been suggesting that it might be one of the films for which the programmers at Telluride might make an exception.
Telluride rarely...and I mean rarely...programs a film that has played previously at Sundance. It happened a couple of years back with Manchester by the Sea which was produced by Amazon Studios. The Report is being distributed this year by Amazon as well.
Not surprisingly, we found out over the weekend that The Report will have a theatrical release prior to its streaming debut on Sept. 27th. Tom Bruggeman at Indiewire, among others, posted that on Thursday. You can find more details in the Indiewire story linked here.
That date would certainly allow The Report to make the lineup at The SHOW as well as Toronto. New York seems unlikely as that fest opens on the 27th as well.
JUST OFF THE "IF I HAD TO"
Friday I kind of did an unofficial list of films that I was spitballing as possible TFF #46 films. If you missed them, that list again was:
Atlantics
The Climb
Country Music
Family Romance LLC
The Goldfinch
Nomadland
Parasite
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Untitled Todd Haynes Project
Varda by Agnes
In addition to those ten films there are a few others that I feel like may also be semi-serious potentials:
Harriet, Motherless Brooklyn, Synonyms, Little Women, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, The Truth.
More to come on Tuesday...
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