Sundance is in full swing, with a barrage of early buys taking place, with other movies garnering the type of buzz that generally translates into profitable box office.
First up, Kevin Smith's much talked about (mostly by himself) horror flick, Red State sold to the director himself for $20 - after the heavily publicised open auction never took place after the film as initially announced. The critical reactions were completely split; two guys I have a lot of respect for had widely different responses. Drew McWeeny from Hitfix.com seemed to be more annoyed at Smith's publicity stunt, but still gave the film a firm thumbs down, adding that he'll never publicise a Kevin Smith production on his site again. But Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter raved about the $4 million film, calling it "A potent cinematic hand grenade tossed to bigots everywhere."
Elsewhere at the festival Paul Rudd starrer My Idiot Brother found a distributor in the form of The Weinstein Company - after they stumped up $4 million to buy the flick. While Emma Roberts and Freddie Highmore starrer Homework sold for $2 million to Fox, with the heavily buzzed about Like Crazy going to Paramount. Anton Yelchin, Jennifer Lawrence and Felicity Jones star in the film about a long term relationship, and many are calling it out as the best of the festival so far.
