I cover the best negotiators for paying subscribers. I wrote about the return of crowdfunding of films as new players bet on fan-investors, analyzed animation box office boomI looked at who scored big feature film offers and interviewed WME’s co-head of independent cinema Deborah McIntosh.
“If you have Jason Statham in any movie, it’s not necessarily a question of who’s going to buy it,” says the WME Independent co-manager. Alex Walton. “It’s about the price you’re going to sell it for.”
I didn’t intend to write a column about Jason Statham. I sought to understand the new economics that govern the indie market – and why foreign pre-sales have quietly become a decisive force in what is actually funded. But when almost every dealmaker I interviewed brought up Statham unprompted, it became clear: He’s not the one making the story here, but he is the perfect example of what buyers want in this market as a proven model evolves.
The old assumptions – that the US release was the most important, that streamers would go for global rights deals – are no longer valid. While the market for domestic and global deals is frustratingly bearish, today’s independent films live or die on whether foreign buyers believe the project is real, the budget is disciplined, and the whole thing will resonate with their specific audiences.
It’s certainly a harder sell, but international distributors are still willing to spend on projects that seem like safe bets – with a lot more control and a lot fewer shortcuts. This is why the agents can are still selling “a Jason Statham movie” in a market that is increasingly averse to risk. Its name instantly answers the two questions buyers ask first: “Will this film sell in my territory?” and “Will my downstream TV partners pay for this?”
As 2025 draws to a close and the annual industry dissections begin, sales agents continue to promote the packages they brought to the American Film Market — including Statham’s sixth feature with director Guy RitchieThe black bear Long live the madnessAnd Beekeeper 2 — hoping to pre-sell enough territories to shore up the rest of their financing before filming in 2026.
So now is the perfect time to discuss with traders why this new version of the proven independent financial playbook is key to the new market.
I spoke with Walton from WME, the one from UTA Rena Ronsonthe CAAs Roeg Sutherland And Sarah SchweitzmannSheppard Mullin Robert Darwell and Akin’s banking expert Chris Spicer to break down the new rules for foreign pre-sales, the genres that are still traveling and what it will really take to get a film made in 2026.
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Foreign buyers keep independent cinema alive – and the territories that matter now are not the ones you think
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The boom in local languages slows down American importsforcing American films to prove they deserve a place on shelves
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Buyers are using a new pre-sale test before touching a contract: Is this project really real?
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Decisions are made on an international scale: the genres that travel, those that don’t, and a surprising category that’s booming
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Drama has a hard time at home but thriving abroad, and what that says about global public behavior
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Producers fill funding gap because pre-sales, tax credits and equity no longer go that far
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Budgets must be brutally tightand why this pressure will lead to smarter, more inventive films
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Image credits: Jeff Spicer/Getty Images, Unomat/Getty Images, Ramberg/Getty Images
