SXSW Preview + Hot List: Movies With Ewan McGregor, Sydney Sweeney, Karen Gillan, Anthony Mackie & More
deadline.comLast year, as the industry was looking to lift itself out the pandemic’s purgatory at the box office, SXSW lit the wick on A24’s Everything Everywhere All at Once, which wound up dynamiting the 18-34 hipster moviegoer set in what became the highest-grossing indie film of 2022, the best ever for the New York-based distributor, and now a potential Oscar Best Picture winner.
As such, it’s often been said that SXSW has been a place to launch big studio horror titles and comedies before genre-friendly crowds rather than sell them and discover frosh talent; it’s here where eventual Shang-Chi and the Legend of the 10 Rings filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton first made a big splash with the Brie Larson drama Short Term 12.
Still, that slow rhythm has never deterred sellers from utilizing the Austin festival as place to launch fresh talent directly to a zeitgeist demographic, away from the noise of Sundance’s high-brow fare and frenzied streaming marketplace.
Last year marked a return to an in-person affair after a three-year hiatus due to Covid, and SXSW came back swinging not just with rock concert-like premieres for Everything Everywhere All at Once, but also Paramount’s The Lost City and the Nicolas Cage satire The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
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