{"id":299153,"date":"2026-02-19T12:19:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/299153\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T12:19:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:19:07","slug":"sonys-worldwide-skeletons-deal-caps-cautious-berlin-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/299153\/","title":{"rendered":"Sony\u2019s Worldwide \u2018Skeletons\u2019 Deal Caps Cautious Berlin Market"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBerlin\u2019s European Film Market ended with a bang.<\/p>\n

\n\tSony Pictures won a bidding war to take worldwide rights for Skeletons<\/a>. The creature feature, about a young boy who discovers a disturbing secret about his mother\u2019s true nature, stars Brie Larson<\/a> and will be produced by JJ Abrams and directed by Strange Darling filmmaker JT Mollner<\/a> (he also wrote the recent Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk).<\/p>\n

\n\tSony outbid fellow studios Warner Bros. and Paramount, as well as indie powerhouse Neon for the title, which FilmNation, CAA and WME were selling at EFM<\/a>. The deal was reportedly pegged at $25 million plus for domestic rights alone.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was the biggest reported deal, by far, out of EFM this year<\/a>, which was otherwise quiet, though productive, according to sales and acquisition execs. The bulk of business, as always for Berlin, was in international<\/a> pre-buys \u2014 Neon picked up Clarissa<\/a>, the new feature from twin filmmakers\u2019 Arie and Chuko Esiri (This Is My Desire), which stars Sophie Okonedo, David Oyelowo, and Ayo Edebiri, and is billed as a modern, Nigerian-set take on Virginia Woolf\u2019s classic novel Mrs. Dalloway, also snatching up international sales rights for the title.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut there were also few domestic pick-ups, including of Sundance hit Josephine<\/a>, a psychological family drama starring Channing Tatum, Gemma Chan and newcomer Mason Reeves, which new domestic distributor Sumerian Pictures acquired in a competitive seven-figure deal.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGemma Chan, Mason Reeves and Channing Tatum in \u2018Josephine\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGreta Zozula\/Courtesy of Sundance<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Berlin boom days, when multiple $100 million plus projects sold out worldwide within the first few days of the market, are ancient history. But after years of contraction, shrinking pre-sales and skittish buyers, there was a sense at EFM, a cautious, qualified sense, that the worst may be over.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019ve hit rock bottom, there\u2019s nowhere to go but up,\u201d quipped one major European buyer.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe packages on offer in Berlin<\/a> were smaller, with lower star wattage and tighter budgets and cheap horror titles were predominant. But there are signs of life \u2014 particularly from the U.S., where a new crop of independent distributors \u2014 Black Bear, Row K, Subtext \u2014 is stepping into the void left by studio retrenchment and the upscaling of indie heavyweights Neon and A24.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA year ago [U.S. distribution] was feeling pretty, pretty tough,\u201d says Zach Glueck, co-CEO of Manifest Pictures, the new U.S. sales outfit he launched in January together with Yvette Zhuang. \u201cBut just the fact that we have so many recent entries into the space, you have to hope they are identifying a gap in the market. We\u2019ll see how the releases go, but it\u2019s good to see froth in that space, hopefully their success can drive their competitors to have to be more aggressive to pick up films and release films.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tInternational, however, is where the real money is. The global theatrical business has recovered faster, post-COVID, than the domestic market, and in most major international territories, there is still healthy competition, with multiple large and mid-sized buyers able to bid on buzz titles.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOver the last couple of years in the independent space, international has been the bedrock of getting independent cinema greenlit,\u201d notes Glueck. \u201cIt\u2019s put a tremendous amount of weight on the international markets and the international buyers to get these films off the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGlueck says the sweet spot is clear: \u201cThe kind of middle lane of films that we want to be identifying are strong genre pieces with a good hook, but that really have a core genre element that can be very easily understood and very easily marketed to a global audience. So \u2014 romances, action thrillers, erotic thrillers. Buyers are really looking for a big, broad comedy with stars. There\u2019s a real value to finding directors or creatives with a track record, especially for pre-buying.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut making indie movies is not getting any easier. Streamers and pay-TV outlets are buying less, and paying less, for movies, removing a comfortable backstop that allowed distributors to take bigger risks, safe in the knowledge they could make their money back on ancillaries.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s become harder for the mid-market movies, the pre-sales, on average, have dropped significantly. The bottom has dropped out,\u201d says Maximilian Leo of German production group Augenschein, whose feature The Weight, starring Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe, premiered out of competition in Berlin.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tEthan Hawke (left) and Austin Amelio in \u2018The Weight.\u2019<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMatteo Cocco\/Courtesy of Sundance<\/p>\n

\n\tTo fill the gap, producers are leaning harder than ever on public support. \u201cIn this market, state subsidies and soft money have become more important to get films made,\u201d notes Leo.<\/p>\n

\n\tAdds Manifest Pictures Co-CEO Yvette Zhuang: \u201cNowadays, pretty much every single project relies on tax credits or incentives from a state or country to meet its budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA handful of bigger titles did cut through in Berlin. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn addition to Skeletons, there was major buzz around Mister, an action comedy from Black Bear and CAA Media Finance starring Walton Goggins and Chlo\u00eb Grace Moretz, marking the directorial debut of stunt and second unit veteran Wade Eastwood (Mission: Impossible \u2013 Fallout). A24 rose about the horror crowd with October, a Halloween-set action horror from Rebel Ridge and Green Room filmmaker Jeremy Saulnier starring Cory Michael Smith, Chase Sui Wonders and Sophie Wilde. And 193 launched sales on Hello & Paris, a rom-com pairing Javier Bardem and Kate Hudson for director Elizabeth Chomko.<\/p>\n

\n\tOutside the U.S., local-language films continue to underpin the ecosystem, making distributors less reliant on American titles. The biggest non-studio movies in Europe last year were local-language comedies, including the Italian hit Buen Camino, which grossed $90 million domestically, and Germany\u2019s Western spoof Manitou\u2019s Canoe with a $57 million local haul.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe are seeing a really active European market, strong European films are doing very well,\u201d says Andrea Scrosati, group COO and CEO Continental Europe for Fremantle, which owns several boutique European production companies, including Ireland\u2019s Element Pictures (Bugonia, Pillion), and Italy\u2019s Wildside (Conclave, After the Hunt) and The Apartment (Challengers, Berlin competition title Rosebush Pruning).<\/p>\n

\n\tThose local successes don\u2019t necessarily translate internationally, but they stabilize national industries and sustain buyer confidence.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Berlin this year, that confidence was present, if fragile. Sellers report cautious buyers taking ever longer to do deals, waiting to see footage, or a finished film, before committing. Or waiting for festival reviews and audience reaction before signing. But the existential crisis that rocked the indie business over the past few years appears to be over. The new normal might not be tentpole titles and 9-figure sales, but it\u2019s a living.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Berlin\u2019s European Film Market ended with a bang. Sony Pictures won a bidding war to take worldwide rights…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[138345,62608,139226,146,85,399,46,89389,151141,397],"class_list":{"0":"post-299153","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-berlin-2026","9":"tag-brie-larson","10":"tag-efm","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-international","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-j-j-abrams","16":"tag-jt-mollner","17":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}