r/Filmmakers • u/Tdoug13 • 17h ago
Discussion Industry Pulse // Tracked 12,000+ buyer actions in the last 60 days and here's what stood out genre wise
Producer here. I did a previous post on some data that I've been tracking and got quite the response! So I wanted to keep up the trend of sharing data being gathered. I'll be aiming to share some data every couple of weeks on here based off different trends being seen or crazy news coming. I started this journey to help solve my own pain point of finding new buyers, sales agents, producers etc to be reaching out to with projects.... it's taken me down quite the rabbit hole. Mainly tracking main industry sources such as Deadline, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, IndieWire, C21, etc. so take what you you will from the data!
Here are a few things that stood out from the last 60 days:
1. Genre momentum:
- Drama and Thriller dominate, but no surprise there.
- Comedy has quietly surged which is awesome to see, being a comedy fan, especially ensemble or character-driven comedies.
- Horror is still hot, but mid-budget horror ($5–25M) is where buyers are most active now. The “cheap horror” myth doesn’t line up with the data. Perhaps though that's because they are mentioned less, so my app doesn't pick it up as much, but this is the data I'm finding.
- Romantic Comedy has made a surprising comeback, with multiple buyers circling it in trades. I have a zombie-romcom film I'm working on so this is also great data to see!
- Documentary is stronger than expected, particularly true-crime and social-impact.
Drama ████████████████████████████████ 312
Thriller ███████████████████████████ 268
Comedy ████████████████████ 201
Horror ██████████████████ 176
Documentary ██████████████ 142
Action █████████████ 127
Romantic Comedy █████████ 89
Science Fiction ███████ 77
Animation █████ 52
Family ████ 41
Drama (312 mentions)
Thriller (268 mentions)
Comedy (201 mentions)
Data represents buyer interest over the past 60 days
Top 3 Genres:
Drama (312 mentions)
Thriller (268 mentions)
Comedy (201 mentions)
\Data represents buyer interest over the past 60 days*
2. How deals are actually flowing (pathways being tracked!):
One thing I realized is I needed to also track pathways. A system to see if there is a way to build out scenarios or options on reaching certain buyers. Obviously this is a heavily gatekept industry but as the data continues to mature I'm starting to see some really cool insight and helpful info! One thing that jumped out: hardly anything goes direct to a streamer. Most projects take 2–3 “hops.” A few real examples from the last couple months:
1. 🎬 Festival (Cleveland Int'l) ═══▶ 🤝 Sales Agent ═══▶ 📺 Distributor
2. 🏗️ Producer (5&2 Studios) ═══▶ 🏢 Amazon MGM Studios ═══▶ 🎥 Prime Video
3. 📋 The Black List ═══▶ 🏗️ Producer (Jax Media) ═══▶ 📺 Fox
4. 🎓 NYU Purple List ═════════════════════════▶ 🔥 Netflix
5. 🏛️ Village Roadshow ═══▶ 🏢 Sony Pictures ═══▶ 🎬 Studio Release
6. 🎭 Agency Rep (Brillstein/Paradigm) ═══▶ 🏢 Studio ═══▶ 📱 Streamer
Most Common Endpoints:
Streamers (Netflix, Prime Video) - 3 chains
Traditional Studios - 2 chains
Network TV (Fox) - 1 chain
Shortest Path: NYU Purple List → Netflix (direct!)
So if you’re banging your head against the wall trying to cold-pitch Netflix… it’s probably not the project or script (although of course no one takes unsolicited content so that's always a given). The trade data shows those “bridges” (producers, agencies, festivals, lists) are what get projects through the door. And yes... way easier said than done! But still some interesting nuggets of info.
Takeaway (grain of salt):
These are just a few insights I pulled from the data, but based off the response of my last post (good and bad ha!) I want to keep sharing insights and hopefully they're of use to some people in this tricky industry we're all crazy enough to be in.
- Genres cycle faster than the chatter makes it seem.
- Buyers are far more specific than “we’re looking for drama.”
- The actual pathways almost always involve a bridge.
Curious what others here are seeing. For those of you who’ve gotten traction lately, was it through a rep, a festival, a producer partner, or something else? Would love to know! Also LET ME KNOW what data you would want a deep dive on for the next Industry Pulse. Budgets? Exec Movements? Sub genres? Let me know!
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u/JustDoTheThing 17h ago
Producer here as well! Really interesting info, are you pulling the data into your scriptmatch project? Been working on a film based project in lovable for a bit, and Claude has been a part of parsing data and helping build out code as well. Are you tracking festivals and what studios are making decisions there as well? If so is it through the sources you mentioned above or elsewhere? Always insightful to see what gets greenlit direct from a pitch vs what gets picked up during a festival run.
Shifts in tax incentives in states/countries would be good to track as well!
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u/Tdoug13 16h ago edited 16h ago
Yes! From ScriptMatch. And yep tracking all that data :). I'm mainly just tracking the major industry trade news right now, along with top podcasts, SEC public reports, and some targeted searches to help support and supplement. But the main data is from the main trades reports. Planning to integrate some other API sources once things ramp up to help strengthen and validate data further.
Would love to hear that you're working on!
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u/JustDoTheThing 14h ago
Very cool! Mine started as a project to help automate a lot of my repetitive processes in pre production because I didn’t like a lot of the options on the market, but I realized there was a lot I could automate helping me decide on projects with coverage reports and some other things. I think I scope creeped enough I might split them into two separate projects though haha
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u/PuzzleheadedMaize742 producer 13h ago
Hi!! Thanks for sharing It’ll be lovely to have more info on documentaries
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u/w4ck0 3h ago
This is an amazing post. I actually have a request to redditors here. I made a 110mins Japanese thriller film last year and after festival run, it’s not doing anything now. I am wondering what can I do to find sales agents/distributors.
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u/Tdoug13 36m ago
Glad it was insightful!!
I'd 100% recommend film markets. Either AFM or EFM from the sounds of your film. Have you done markets yet? That's by far the best way to get in front is sales agents and chat. It's actually part of the reason I built the app which powers the above data, so you can get informed decisions on which buyers to approach! Essentially a tailored list for your script or film of recommended buyers to approach based off all the latest industry data. App is called ScriptMatch and beta is launching soon if it's of interest :)
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u/SuspiciousPrune4 12h ago
I’ve never heard of the NYU purple list! Is it only available for NYU students?
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u/TimoVuorensola 4h ago
This data is extremely good, one even wishes you'd have a platform (other than Reddit) where this would be available easily and followably! Great help, thanks!
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u/Tdoug13 29m ago
Glad it was useful! Yes, besides the app we're launching soon which is powered by this kind of data, I'll be setting up a newsletter that is sent out regularly! If you sign up on our website, regardless of using the app or not, you'll then be on the mailing list and get notified when we startup a weekly or bi-weekly newsletter. www.scriptmatch.ai
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u/Important_Extent6172 producer 17h ago
I noticed in your previous post that you said this:
Budget reality that'll surprise you:
• Horror has 105 buyers in the $5-25M range (way more than expected)
• Only 51 buyers want horror under $5M (the "cheap horror" myth is dead)
How is the “cheap horror myth” dead when it’s still nearly 50% of the pool according to your numbers?
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u/Tdoug13 17h ago
Totally. Yeah because I had originally assumed the majority of the horrors where in the low budget range, not only 50%! But that's just my take on it, totally can draw different conclusions off the data. Was cool to just see what the data was saying.
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u/Important_Extent6172 producer 17h ago
Oh yes, I see now. I somehow interpreted that as you saying that slice of the market was dead, but pretty clearly you were stating that the myth of that being the driving budget range is what is dead. Thank you for clarifying!
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u/sucobe producer 17h ago
I’m confused, how is a $5M horror more enticing than a $1M horror? If I can shoot for cheaper, wouldn’t that be a better ROI for buyers?
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u/Important_Extent6172 producer 16h ago
Just my perspective but what you can do for the higher budget range could very well come back as a higher ROI. Your investment in a few named actors that might get better distro deal and audience interest translates into more viewers, and more you can put on the screen in the form of locations, sets, SFX, etc. that could arguably make for a much more appealing film. You could bring in a named director who has a built-in following. It might allow you to qualify for tax incentives that the lower budget might not depending on the location. I’ve even found that a lot of investors are leery about what $1 million will look like on the screen as far as quality, and in fact one of our investor pools won’t even consider anything under $5 million. The return just isn’t worth their risk, so it’s easier for us to fund a $5m+ film than a $1m. I’m also speaking specifically about the horror genre and my own experience here.
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u/sucobe producer 15h ago
This is great to know, but also a bummer. We’ve got a horror in development to shoot in Missouri for the incentives for $1.1M with our assumption this would be a steal to shoot.
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u/Tdoug13 14h ago
Don't let this discourage you!! NO! That's the last thing I'd ever want. As u/Important_Extent6172 said, these are just a snapshot of data points. There is still SO much opportunity for micro budget horrors. And they are the ones that can go absolute bonkers if you hit a homerun with it. Also the benchmark to recoup is that much lower. If you can, always great to connect with sales agents prior to get some validation! Also, this industry moves fast. I was at one film market and all eveyrone wanted was creature features. Then the next market they wanted romantic comedies...
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u/Important_Extent6172 producer 15h ago
Don’t let it be a bummer, there are lots of great horror pictures done at the $1m mark and under, and the numbers provided here by OP are a snapshot of a very large industry but what matters is to work within the boundaries you have. Make an entertaining horror film and there’s always an audience.
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u/jstarlee 11h ago
They are not the same movies.
The 5-25m horror are probably guaranteed SAG and thus have a much higher probability of recognizable names in the cast. Just means distributors are betting on safer bets.
Just personal observation. This was not from proven industry knowledge.
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u/Intrepid-Ad7884 16h ago
Definitely gonna be keeping an eye on these if you ever make any more, this is really interesting!