Roeg Sutherland & Benjamin Kramer Taking Cannes Market By Storm: ‘The Rewards Are Great For Filmmakers Willing To Work Outside The Studio System’ — Deadline Disruptors

deadline.com:

The rise of streamer content has created anxiety for talent and their reps, because of models that require ownership of a project in perpetuity.

Because product starts on a streaming site and then never leaves, there is no chance of backend windfalls. Just look at the creators and cast of Squid Game to see what that can mean: a billion-dollar property for Netflix, embarrassingly tiny paydays for the artists who made it, and little hope of making up the shortfall in subsequent seasons.While some of Hollywood’s top dealmakers and lawyers are trying to create fair compensation formulas, one growing way to turn shifting sands into an upside is a trend of artists and their agents gambling on themselves and coming to the market with fully fleshed-out projects, packaged with script, director and star.

The result has been auctions that bring greenlights and sometimes career-best paydays.The biggest recent example was the sale of two Knives Out sequels from Rian Johnson.

The CAA-brokered auction ended with Netflix paying around $450 million for two films, and the paydays to Johnson and star Daniel Craig are rumored to be in the $100 million range.