Kiss of the Spider Woman - Still no distributor...

https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2025/2/4/no-buyers-interest-in-kiss-of-the-spider-woman-60m-budget

makes it sound like the film might not be heading our way anytime soon... I wonder if a streamer will pick it up?

Bizarre that they list the cost of the movie at $60M. My friend on the crew tells me they shot the film for $20M, an astonishingly low price for a movie of that scale today. Even if they were lumping in advertisement and distribution costs, that $60M figure seems out of whack.

The film, like the musical, is a tough sell to general audiences. It will get distributed, but since it is probably not going to make that much money, I guess no one is jumping at it. I imagine it will end up on a streaming service like HBO or Netflix. It would probably do best there.

Waitress also didn’t have a distributor for like seven months after the festival premiere. All in good time, my little pretties.

To add to what Kad said above, most of the entertainment journalists I read and whose podcasts I listen to have noted how lackluster this Sundance has been. There are a handful of titles that might break even and develop a following (Sorry Baby, Twinless, Train Dreams), but there's nothing on the level of even something like last year's A Real Pain. Maybe Searchlight or another prestige distributor will eventually scoop it up, but I'm wondering if it will eventually end up lost in the Netflix content churn - or with a lesser distributor like Bleecker Street. Given that Lopez and Artists Equity have worked with Amazon/MGM multiple times, it's odd to me that nobody has mentioned them pursuing this title.

KevinKlawitter said: From what I've heard, it's in the middle of a bidding war."

That's good to hear. I really hope this ends up in the hands of a distributor interested in putting it in theaters.

Updated On: 2/5/25 at 04:51 PM

Remember that because this was independently financed, if it goes to a streaming service the producers will want much MORE than the actual cost of the movie because there is no backend profit for streaming. They also know JL’s movies have done quite well on streaming. This might still get eyeballs despite the 58 Metacritic score. So yeah, I could see them putting the asking price at double the cost of the film.

Film budgets are also unusual. There are tax incentives and deferred payments and things that can all make a film *seem* cheaper than it actually was.

Purely speculation, but being that the film was co-financied by companies owned by the leading lady (JL) and her now-ex husband (Ben Affleck), there may be a little more legal scrutiny surrounding a deal.

BJR said: "PS That metacritic score is based on, what, 5 reviews - and even less from big critics?"

14 critics, but fair enough.

Critical reception can change between Sundance and the eventual release of a film. Sometimes there's even further editing: that happened with PASSING a few years ago (among other films).

Updated On: 2/5/25 at 09:05 PM

kdogg36 said: "darquegk said: "Part of me wonders if this is an intentional coyote. A film made at great expense, with the intent to can it and ultimately profit from the write-offs."

I'm not trying to be difficult, but could you explain what kind of write-offs could possibly pay more than the cost of making the movie? This kind of argument is sometimes made about stage productions, too, but I'm not aware of any tax write-offs (for example) that save a taxpayer more than the losses incurred."

Warner Brothers in the past few years has become infamous for not releasing fairy big budget movies and taking a tax write off. Batgirl, Scooby Doo, Roadrunner movie with an A list cast. Try googling these to get a better explanation, I really can't explain how the law works; I think it is absurd that tax laws are made this way.

Why would an movie be produced independently for the purpose of being written off? For a major studio reliant on corporate stockholders you can at least see the evil pragmatism, but for an indie it doesn't make any sense.

Bwaygurl2 said: "Warner Brothers in the past few years has become infamous for not releasing fairy big budget movies and taking a tax write off. Batgirl, Scooby Doo, Roadrunner movie with an A list cast. Try googling these to get a better explanation, I really can't explain how the law works; I think it is absurd that tax laws are made this way."

To be clear, I can fully buy that a company might, at some point after finishing a movie with dire commercial prospects, decide that the best way to proceed is to junk it and take some sort of tax deduction. What I'm skeptical about is that a project could be conceived from the outset as a way to make a net profit for the company through write-offs that would somehow exceed the expense of making the movie.

Stop talking about tax writeoffs! That's not what's going to happen here!

Acquisitions can take time. Yes, it's a high-profile title and sometimes things do get snatched up quickly, but this premiered less than 2 weeks ago.

There's no benefit to an overnight bidding war.

A worst-case scenario for an independent film is what happened to Francis Coppola on MEGALOPOLIS and Kevin Costner on HORIZONS: they cost $100 million+, nobody wanted to buy the films outright for anything close to that pricetag, so they made a distribution deal instead (with Lionsgate and Warner Bros respectively) and the original LLC of the independent film retains control of it. I highly highly doubt that would happen here: Spidey costs much less, and JLO still does mean something.

It's really not that unusual for an independently-financed film to not have distribution right after the world premiere, especially one that has a higher price tag.

The subject matter here also complicates sales given how few buyers there are now in Hollywood, and those that are left are mostly sucking up to the guy in the White House, which would keep them far away from this.

I'm sure it will wind up somewhere eventually, but likely won't be released until the winter and make it an awards play for the 2026 Oscars.

Updated On: 2/6/25 at 05:39 PM