$1.3 Billion Goes Poof..seeking Sundance

Sundance and the Single Documentary Economy: The $1.3 Billion Cost of Missing Out

by Peter Hamilton

Link: https://www.documentarytelevision.com/documentary-budget/sundance-and-the-single-documentary-economy-the-1-3-billion-cost-of-missing-out/

2019 January 19

The documentary niche has remarkable financial scale, as measured by the films seeking selection at Sundance.

• Let’s assume that the average production cost of all 2,649 Sundance submissions for 2019 is $500,000.
  • Actual budgets range from around $200,000 up to $5+ million.
  • $500K is a conservative average.

Production Cost:

• 2,600 documentaries were “Not Accepted” in 2019.
• The total production expense of the “Not Accepted” films would be $1.3 billion!
• My 2018 estimate was $800+ million in unsuccessful production costs.

Source: Sundance Film Festival, DocumentaryBusiness.com

Takeaways

• The documentary feature gains ever more popularity, celebrity and prestige as a medium of creative expression and investigation.
• It attracts funding from broadcasters and platforms, governments, foundations, the hyper- hyper-rich, A-listers, crowd funders, BF’s, the mortgage on grandma’s beach cottage, personal overdrafts, and more.
• Few productions ever recover these contributions from their commercial distribution efforts.
• However many projects do succeed by non-commercial measures: for example by inspiring social change or advancing the careers of their filmmakers.
• And BTW, lots of terrific films are not accepted at Sundance but go on to find recognition and acclaim at other festivals and markets.