9 Films Bought by Distributors Within Days of Their Festival Premiere

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A festival premiere used to mean months of waiting for a buyer. These days the pace can be startling. A film plays on a Thursday night, and by the weekend several companies are circling it.

The nine titles below come from the 2026 festival calendar, covering Sundance, Cannes and Toronto. Some sold after a bidding war, and others quietly landed with a specialty label. Each entry notes what the reporting says about the buyer and the timing, and where the timing isn’t spelled out, the text says so.

The Invite

The Invite (Image Credits: Pexels)
The Invite (Image Credits: Pexels)

Olivia Wilde and Annapurna Pictures’ Sundance title entered a competitive 72 hour bidding marathon after its premiere, with A24 coming out on top. Neon, Focus Features, Netflix and Warner Bros. all fought for it, and the final bidding reached the eight figure range late on Tuesday night, January 27.

Bidding began at around 10 million dollars. That starting point alone shows how much confidence buyers had in the film once the Park City audience had seen it. It was one of the loudest deals of the 2026 Sundance market.

Leviticus

Leviticus (Image Credits: Unsplash)
Leviticus (Image Credits: Unsplash)

Sundance also had a horror sale. Adrian Chiarella’s film was acquired by Neon in a seven figure deal that closed on Tuesday, January 27. That’s the same night The Invite was settled, so it was a busy evening for deal makers.

IndieWire’s running list describes it as a queer horror film that landed at Neon in a worldwide deal. It was the company’s second…

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Author : Matthias Binder

Publish date : 2026-10-14 06:54:00

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