- A Venue That Finally Works (Rain Included)
- Market Conditions: Strong Interest, Tight Conversion
- Introducing the FilmTake Advance Index
- The Real Drag: Post-Theatrical Collapse
- 50 Most Talked-About Films & Market Packages at AFM
- What AFM 2025 Ultimately Revealed
- Pathé’s Big Move Back to English Language
- FilmTake Away: The Market Isn’t Dying—It’s Rebalancing
As the American Film Market wrapped at the Fairmont Century Plaza, the prevailing sentiment was unmistakable: relief. After four locations in four years—Santa Monica, virtual, Las Vegas—the independent business finally had a market that functioned, flowed, and felt worthy of the work being done inside it.
What surprised many was that the venue wasn’t the only stabilizing factor. The storm that drenched Los Angeles for much of the week pushed attendees indoors, swelling the Fairmont lobby and the AMC Century City screenings to a level of density AFM hasn’t seen in years.
Yet beneath the upbeat atmosphere came unmistakable signals about a fundamentally changed business: fewer ancillary dollars, contracting Pay-1 values across multiple major territories, MGs under sustained pressure, and a widening gulf between seller expectations and buyer realities. AFM 2025 is confirmed; this is a market that is stabilizing, but under far uncompromising economic conditions.
A Venue That Finally Works (Rain Included)
For the first time in years, the AFM venue was no longer a problem to solve. It was an asset. The Fairmont’s centralized footprint, walkable layout, and immediate proximity to agencies and amenities allowed attendees to focus on business rather than logistics.
This year’s AFM space sold out with 285 exhibitors from 35 countries, matching last year’s count but with significantly fewer operational headaches. Buyers from South Korea, Germany, the UK, France, and Italy were particularly strong; some from Asia and the Middle East stayed away.
A portion of sales meetings migrated off-site—at the Waldorf, the Avalon, or private residences—where top sales agencies had established suites. Still, the Fairmont provided a coherent hub, giving AFM a sense of groundedness it has lacked since the lockdowns.
Market Conditions: Strong Interest, Tight Conversion
Unlike the Vegas year—where morale crumbled—AFM 2025 felt alive. Meetings were packed, screenings were well attended, and energy returned to the halls. But announced deals were scarce.
Several titles generated meaningful noise:
- “Ibelin” (Black Bear)
- “Bad Bridgets” (FilmNation, WME Independent)
- “Phantom Son” (AGC)
- “King Snake” (A24)
- “The Resurrection of the Christ” (Lionsgate International)
…but actual closings remained limited.
Sellers brought ambitious packages, but buyers felt many projects were priced for a previous era. The week’s theatrical results didn’t help. “Die, My Love and Christy“ underperformed, reinforcing doubts about the independent theatrical runway. Regardless, many recognized that expectations haven’t adjusted to what audiences respond to right now.
Meanwhile, theatrical performance continues to shape expectations. Several high-profile adult dramas with strong festival pedigrees underperformed domestically this year, reinforcing buyer skepticism.
Introducing the FilmTake Advance Index
Verified Deals. Global Insight. Real Negotiation Power.
The FilmTake Advance Index compiles verified minimum guarantee (MG) deals across North America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America, drawn from hundreds of independent and mid-budget films representing over 1,300 territorial transactions.
It tracks how distributors have valued features with budgets between $500,000 and $60 million—revealing what buyers have actually paid for comparable titles by region, genre, and budget level.
Film Advance Index Editions
Whichever side of the table you sit—producer, sales, distributor, or financier—you’ll gain clarity and confidence from verified data.
- Tier A – Prestige / Breakout: Festival winners and high-profile projects with marquee cast or auteur value.
- Tier B – Commercial Genre / Mid-Tier: Thrillers, elevated horror, crime, and cast-driven action.
- Tier C – Arthouse / Quiet Drama: Critically regarded features with limited but targeted appeal.
- Global Edition: Complete dataset spanning all tiers and territories.
The Real Drag: Post-Theatrical Collapse
The deterioration of Pay-1 and SVOD values—which first hit the U.S. in 2022—has now spread:
- Germany, Spain, and Italy are experiencing U.S.-style Pay-1 erosion.
- U.K. distributors report sharp drops in ancillary revenue.
- U.S. distributors are still absorbing the impact from losing major downstream output deals.
Those shrinking downstream economics shape everything. Without predictable Pay-1 values, distributors struggle to justify robust MGs, leading to fewer pre-sales and more conservative acquisitions.
Still, the market produced bright spots. AGC’s “Phantom Son” proved a strong seller thanks to a clean, marketable concept. And, in true AFM fashion, the surprise comeback of “Sharknado” with “Sharknado Origins” reminded everyone that the right hook—albeit a low-budget flying shark—still cuts through the market noise.
50 Most Talked-About Films & Market Packages at AFM
This year’s AFM slate is unusually dense, featuring high-profile packages, prestige breakouts, and ambitious commercial plays across genres, drama, and franchise-adjacent concepts. To help readers track the projects driving the most conversation—across sellers, buyers, agencies, and financiers—we’ve compiled a downloadable list of the 50 packages that dominated market attention.
What AFM 2025 Ultimately Revealed
AFM 2025 didn’t produce a wave of splashy acquisitions, but it accomplished something more important: it restored credibility to the independent market. The Fairmont delivered a stable, professional venue with dense foot traffic, strong attendance, and a coherent environment where real business could finally happen.
High-profile packages generated genuine interest, but the challenges remain unmistakable—collapsing ancillary values, inflated seller expectations, compressed MGs, fewer active territories, and increasingly risk-averse U.S. distributors. As FilmTake has reported from Cannes to Toronto, acquisition volume is holding steady, but valuations are undergoing a lasting structural reset.
Pathé’s Big Move Back to English Language
One of the most consequential announcements of AFM landed near the end: Pathé is relaunching its English-language film business, naming the former president of motion pictures at FilmNation as co-CEO of Pathé UK and president of global film.
Upcoming Pathé titles include:
- “Bunker” (Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem)
- “Karma” (Marion Cotillard)
- “The Unknown” (Léa Seydoux)
The move reverberated through the market, with executives noting it could reconfigure the financing and sales landscape between London and LA — particularly as the UK’s new Independent Film Tax Credit (IFTC) offers eligible films up to a 53% relief rate on qualifying expenditure, inviting a surge of US and global producers to re-base their projects in Britain.
FilmTake Away: The Market Isn’t Dying—It’s Rebalancing
AFM 2025 didn’t signal a return to boom times, but it confirmed the business has a functioning center again. Buyers are cautious, sellers are adjusting, and packages that match economic reality still command attention.
The patterns are clear:
- France continues to pay.
- Japan pays selectively.
- GCC remains steady for commercial genre.
- Horror and elevated thrillers outperform.
- Prestige works when driven by concept, not pedigree.
- Strong U.S. buyers are slowly returning.
The winners in this new era will be those operating on verified numbers—not instincts, not inherited models, and not the memory of a pre-2020 marketplace.
That is precisely the purpose of the FilmTake Advance Index, the only verified MG dataset covering more than 1,300 territorial advances across 300+ films. In a world where downstream guarantees no longer exist, information is leverage—and leverage is the last thing that moves deals.