…For the past few years though, Sundance has been at the center of an industry in trouble. Like the rest of the economy, the independent film world got hit hard by the global crisis. Before 2008, Wall Street bankers with more money than they knew what to do with were directing extra funds into the film world in the hopes of turning a profit or at least getting to meet Scarlett Johansson.
That created a glut of independent films that were competing for limited theater space and audience attention. As a result marketing budgets started to exceed production budgets. The economics of making independent films fell apart around the same time Wall Street crashed. Independent film branches like Paramount Vantage and Warner Independent closed their doors.
But today, things are starting to look up for independent films. The glut is gone…