Below The Line

A Market Defined by Absence The American Film Market 2025 at the Fairmont Century Plaza felt different the moment you stepped into the lobby. Not “lighter” or “consolidated,” but genuinely quiet in a way that even those of us who survived the Loews era, the Le Méridien era (“year”), and yes — the strangely enthusiastic Vegas experiment of 2024 — couldn’t fully recognize. Entire buying blocs that once reliably filled hallways were reduced to a handful of familiar faces. Europe

There’s a “new” buyer in town called Radial Entertainment, and in this article I will indeed be covering what they’re buying, in what quantity, and MG ranges. But this new buyer isn’t exactly new – it’s the result of a handful of mergers and acquisitions.

Theaters Are Bouncing Back for [Some] Indies, But Teaching Lessons to the Studios. Not sure how many of you are paying attention, but the brief is this. Some studios have wins while others are still flopping at the box office, other distributors (*cough* A24) are climbing into new budgets and getting a spanking (I mean "learning lessons"), and yet and still, moviegoers are coming back to theaters and some indies are making money that's important for them [it just wouldn't get

The center of gravity has shifted. Netflix is prioritizing titles that travel cleanly across regions and feel like events the moment they hit the service. You see it in how quickly certain films move from festival conversation to global availability and in how the rows are programmed: bold, instantly legible choices that signal confidence to subscribers. For filmmakers, that means thinking beyond a domestic play; the mandate is momentum that translates in Seoul, São Paulo, an

Disney just walked into a buzzsaw. What started as a late-night decision around Jimmy Kimmel has snowballed into a broader perception problem, and perception—right now—is currency. In an industry where churn, pricing, and portfolio positioning are all moving at once, a PR bruise in one division can tighten appetites in another. That matters for indie distributors and filmmakers chasing licensing deals. The timing here isn’t ideal. Disney is pushing through another round of su

Let me start by saying this wasn’t some buttoned-up industry panel. Tony Piantedosi — SVP of Acquisitions at Vertical Entertainment and a longtime friend of mine — and I cracked open drinks, hit record, and went [almost] straight into the raw questions filmmakers ask me every damn day. You want to know what gets your pitch deleted before it’s even read? Or why some films land a Pay 1 deal while others sink without a trace? Tony lays it out, unfiltered. And if you’ve ever thou

Hulu is quietly stepping up its game in acquiring content from independent creators — and not just in genres where it already has strength. Word is, recent deals reach deeper into films that cover specific topics and genres that can qualify for an acquisition outside the normal star‑driven content mandate. Hulu is said to be holding a small but strategic slush fund dedicated to these creators, allowing flexibility in making acquisitions beyond the typical risk thresholds. Wha

5 September 2025 - First, the good intel: by my count, there are still 36 North American buyers open to distributing dramas without major name talent (another 13 buyers for B+ to A list talent packages), and another 100+ buyers internationally . Then, the not so good... If you've been paying attention to the market then you already know the independent drama market has become a far tougher financial climb, both domestically and internationally. Films budgeted in the $500K t

29 August 2025 - Filmmakers ask us all the time: why pick one distributor over another? And increasingly, some are bypassing...

29 August 2025 - NBCUniversal’s Pesacock has just inked a deal to join Amazon’s Prime Video Channels, making its ad-free Premium Plus...

22 August 2025 - Paramount’s new $7.7 billion, seven-year deal with UFC isn’t just about sports—it’s a shot across the bow of Netflix,...

15 August 2025 - For the first time in several years, we’re starting to see something we haven’t seen in a while: unsolicited inbound...

15 August 2025 - Meanwhile, in the ad-supported world, Fawesome is quietly growing for catalog monetization and mid-tier genre content....

15 August 2025 - Roku, a household name in the U.S. streaming hardware space, is making a notable content play with the launch of Howdy...