Market Shift Coming? -- Early Outreach from Key International Buyers

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 requests from major international buyers — notably from Spain, Germany, Eastern Europe, and CIS — asking for updated availability lists. These aren’t bottom-tier buyers either; these are key territories with traditionally strong theatrical and licensing ecosystems.

This is notable for a few reasons. First, it’s early. TIFF is just around the corner, but the next major international rights market — AFM in Los Angeles — isn’t until November. Normally, buyer outreach heats up closer to AFM, once they’ve had a chance to review slates and solidify fourth-quarter needs. So when buyers reach out months ahead of the cycle, it suggests something else might be going on.

Here’s our read: after 3–4 years of an increasingly imbalanced “buyers market” — where supply drastically outpaced demand — we may finally be seeing the reverse. The slowdown in indie production (fueled by higher production costs, harder-to-raise capital, and streamer consolidation which has led to decreased domestic MGs) may be tightening the pipeline just enough to cause discomfort on the buyer side. In other words, demand is holding, but supply is thinning — and that gives sellers leverage.

It’s still too early to call this a full-on market correction, but the signs are encouraging. If this continues, we could see stronger MGs and more competitive licensing terms by Q4 — particularly for commercially viable genre fare, seasonal content, and projects with name cast.

We’ll continue to monitor closely and report what we see.