Is the Hope at AFM Real?

Film execs heading to L.A. for the American Film Market may be feeling something they haven’t in a while: hope. Disruption still reigns, but independent and specialty fare has had a run of breakouts at the North American box office, topped by this weekend’s launch of Godzilla Minus Zero. The sequel from GKIDS and Toho opened to an estimated $32 million, well above the distributor’s mid-$20 millions projection. Takashi Yamazaki’s follow-up to the Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One (2023) reportedly cost in the mid-teens and is being touted as the biggest live-action foreign-language opening since 2004’s Hero, which bowed with $17.8 million. It isn’t the only surprise. A24’s You Can See Everything, the Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, is entering blockbuster territory, having grossed almost $80 million domestically. That’s a rare result for nonfiction in a theatrical market that has been unkind to documentaries, and the film is only beginning to roll out internationally. Niche programming is delivering, too. Angel Studios’ faith-based Drummer Boy, from directors Ben and Joel David Smallbone, opened to around $9 million. Nitesh Tiwari’s Indian epic Ramayana: Rise of a Legend, handled in the U.S. by Sony, grossed an estimated $8.6 million in its first weekend, on the widest domestic launch ever for an Indian film. Add this year’s indie horror run, from Obsession ($500 million worldwide and counting) to Backrooms ($400 million-plus) and the self-distributed Iron Lung ($50 million-plus), and the makings of a good-vibes AFM are in place. For sellers, the biggest takeaway is that audiences are showing up, and that they are young. Sarah Lebutsch, head of sales at U.K. group Protagonist Pictures, points to You Can See Everything as proof that a smart campaign and the right timing can still produce a hit. “Look at what You Can See Everything is doing at the moment in the U.S. It’s incredible,” she says. She is equally encouraged by who is buying tickets. “It’s great to see those sorts of box office results, and the fact that Gen Z are going, and Gen Alpha are going and seeing films together in cinemas,” Lebutsch says. “There is a big resurgence of that, which I think we should all be very, very encouraged by.” Policy may help, too. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is pushing a major expansion of the state’s film and TV tax credit program, proposing to raise the annual credit from $750 million to $1 billion. The incentive has been crucial for keeping projects in the state. Newsom is also backing the bipartisan effort in Congress, championed by President Trump, to create a national film and TV tax incentive that would stack with each state’s own credits. For indie producers piecing together financing, having a federal layer on top of state incentives would be a significant and much-needed change. The presale market, long AFM’s foundation, also appears to be holding up. “At Protagonist, we’ve always done very well out of the AFM,” Lebutsch says. “Presales have always worked really well for us there. The big buyers from across the world, they’ll all be there to pick up packages.” Protagonist will be shopping It’s All Right, with Paul Bettany as an aging rock star and Asha Banks as a rising singer who, unbeknownst to her, is his forgotten daughter from a one-night stand. The online creator-to-director pipeline will be a major talking point at this year’s AFM. Seemingly all the hot young horror directors honed their craft, and built their respective fan bases, online before their theatrical breakouts. “The film industry can certainly learn from creators that storytelling doesn’t need to be limited necessarily to strict forms,” says veteran horror producer Steven Schneider (Paranormal Activity, Insidious), whose Spooky Pictures recently scored a hit with Hokum, which has grossed $25 million worldwide on a $5 million budget. “Stories can begin online, narratives can be told, shared and expanded through shortform videos and parsed out over time in a way that builds awareness and excitement. Creators have shown incredible prowess in meeting their audiences where they’re at.” But Schneider cautions that success online does not always translate to cinemas. “Traditional storytelling conventions and techniques are established for good reason,” he says. “We want to innovate and bridge the gap between an online audience and a theatrical one, but it’s important to respect the differences in the form.” Traditional filmmaking, he argues, can “connect more deeply and profoundly with an audience through intricate storytelling,” and that craft “shouldn’t be dismissed in favor of virality or easy dopamine hits.” Not every indie package at AFM will become the next Obsession or You Can See Everything. But audiences are returning, U.S. tax incentives are on the horizon and a new generation of filmmakers is packing theaters with younger fans. For a market that for years felt like it was in terminal decline, that’s reason enough to cheer.