WME Independent co-head Alex Walton went behind the scenes of the company’s involvement in Sundance breakout Josephine in a talk on the nuts and bolts of his business and current trends in an EFM talk on Saturday.
WME Independent is co-repping domestic rights with CAA Media Finance on the Sundance Jury Prize and Audience Award winner by Beth de Araújo, starring Channing Tatum and Jemma Chan as parents of a young girl who witnesses a sexual assault.
Speaking just hours before it was announced that Sumerian Pictures had clinched U.S rights in a competitive seven-figure deal, Walton revealed he met Araújo and the film’s producer David Kaplan four years ago in Sundance, crediting WME Independent’s Abe Benigio with leading on the project.
“Abe had been pushing me on the script. He loved Beth’s previous film (Soft & Quiet), which was more of a genre movie… so a slightly different area… but she’s so talented,” he recounted. “Channing was a conversation already. We as a group were across it for a long time… Gemma Chan joined… then there was a possibility, because you’ve got big stars, that it could hit hard.”
“Price point wise, it felt like a movie, that if you could achieve a finance plan without taking it to market, that could be risky but a stronger path to go,” he said, noting the budget was put together using soft money and private money.
He suggested this had paid off, noting there were several offers on the table.
“They’re spoilt for choice in a good way, with people who are making very…. aggressive… forget about financially, but also in terms of how they would bring this movie and this subject, which feels so vital to us,” he said.
“When you’re three weeks from Sundance screening, and people are talking about it so much more now than they were when they first saw it, it’s a movie that grabs you and won’t let go.”
The Josephine deal announcement said Sumerian Pictures had committed to both a major theatrical release and awards campaign for the film, which is already firing up 2026-27 awards season buzz on the back of its double Sundance win. Best Picture nominee Minari and Best Picture winner CODA both achieved the same feat in 2021 and 2021 respectively.
The multimillion dollar which takes the indie distributor out of its normal hitting zone, is also seen as a good sign for the indie space, heralding the arrival of another ambitious U.S. buyer.
Earlier in Saturday’s talk, Walton suggested there was a new energy bubbling in the indie film sector on a number of fronts.
“The last few years been as hard at it gets in terms of changes in the domestic market. There are definite green shoots,” he said.
He pointed to the launch of a clutch of new U.S. indie distributors over the past eight months such as Row K, Black Bear’s new distribution arm and Sumerian Pictures, as well as the recent box office success of indie produced and distributed films Nuremberg and The Housemaid.
“The challenge is television and how do you get your pay-1 deal. If you don’t have a clear path to how you get that, how do you then finance your P&A. It’s not that pay-tv has gone away it’s just they’re engaging with the independents in different ways,” he continued.
He suggested buyers had developed other ways to allow them “to be courageous” in the marketplace, while the success of independently produced, sold and distributed titles such as Nuremberg, on which WME Independent handled sales, as well as Lionsgate’s The Housemaid had also injected fresh energy.
“It’s being released by independents all over the world… The movie is historical, it’s obviously got some factual truth to it, but it’s entertaining as much as a highbrow topic can be… it’s playing so well and not just in theatres, it’s also transactional, not just old, it’s young and old,” he said of Nuremberg.
“The Housemaid sold to independents all over the world… It’s going to be five million admissions in France… There are obviously no similarities between those two films, but they are both movies that used to be made a lot, and this is where the independent business is so critical. In the 1990s, historical dramas of scale were more familiar, same with a sexy thriller. They haven’t been made, not because people don’t want them, they haven’t been made, and people really want them.”
Walton noted that the box office only told part of the story for Nuremberg, citing its success on Sky in the UK as an example.
He added he wished the press would pay more attention to this when tracking the performance of a film, as well as the fact that given so many other sources of entertainment such as gaming are now available, cinema was holding up well.
“I’d love the press to stop attacking the independent business or theatrical business, specifically. The theatrical business has always been a loss leader. It’s the shop window. It’s not just about theatrical. It’s great when theatrical is working but it’s a much bigger pie,” he said.
Walton revealed WME Independent receives 30 projects a week, and that shifting through the submissions can be like “looking for a needle in a haystack. Quizzed on what he is looking for in a project, he held up David Cronenberg’s 2005 action thriller A History of Violence as his yardstick.
“An auteur filmmaker working in a way that is both theatrical, and can play at home, in a movie that has an edge. As a salesperson, you have a little bit more protection… independent buyers like a bit of edge. They know how to handle that.”
Walton suggested the energy was tricking over into Berlinale and EFM, admitting he was also a longtime fan of the event.
“I’ve been coming here since its moved to Potsdamer Platz,” he said of the festival which moved from its original Zoo Palast location in 2000/
“I’ve always been a fan, and we’ve had many films sell in the marketplace really well here, a successful Berlin is a really important part of the calendar. I think from a market standpoint, we need to be together, being able to take people away from their day to day business for one week, to consider material it’s the most efficient way.”