Sony Pictures Classics chiefs on what AI can't do, avoiding bidding wars and more
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At this year’s festival to unveil our inaugural Cannes issue, I had to opportunity to sit down with Sony Pictures Classics co-founders and co-presidents Michael Barker and Tom Bernard and EVP of Acquisitions, Production and Business Affairs Dylan Leiner on the Main Stage at the Marché du Film to discuss the company’s festival strategy, bidding wars, artificial intelligence and more.Watch the full conversation and read edited excerpts below.
How much does the festival reception of a movie, the reviews coming out of a festival, the buzz around it, shape decisions that you’re making? Or is it just confirming what your gut already knows?Leiner: I want to tell one story that speaks to that, which was at the first Berlin Film Festival we attended after COVID.I remember, in the same day, I ran into three international distributors who all asked if we had seen “The Teacher’s Lounge.” And I didn’t even know what the film was.
It wasn’t on our radar, it wasn’t in competition.So we quickly saw “Teacher’s Lounge” and we acquired the film [which went on to be nominated for the 2024 international feature Oscar].
And that was one of the great values of an in-person festival, the ability very quickly to communicate with distributors, with tastemakers, with critics from around the world and get that kind of information.Gut, personal taste...
It plays into it a lot, but then we need reassurance.And being at a festival and being in this fishbowl environment is really helpful for that.For a lot of people, myself included, the mystique of a festival is often around the bidding war narratives: Who’s going to pick up what and what are they going to pay? I’m curious for your take on the first big acquisition of this year’s Cannes, A24 buying “Club Kid” for a reported $17 million.Bernard: Throughout the years, there were companies [that would] maybe overpay, or they...