What happened to the Sundance Film Festival?

Remember when the Sundance Film Festival was a modest event where young independent filmmakers could be discovered? Someone obscure like Kevin Smith could make a little black-and-white film in a New Jersey convenience store starring his buddies for saved-up allowance money and get it shown at Sundance? What a great opportunity for kids who had no connections, no major representation, no track record to be seen and heard.

The films were uneven but so what? That was the fun of Sundance. You never knew what you’d find. And along the way you’d encounter wonderful, daring, original material.

Unfortunately, Hollywood took notice. They snatched up the best of these little gems and distributed them. A few made money. So major studios opened indie divisions. Agents and studio people started gravitating to Park City. “Reception” stopped meaning a little post-screening party at a local pub; it meant: “how many bars are you getting on your cellphone?”

For Hollywood it was perfect – a chance to buy pre-existing product they didn’t have to develop and fund, a ski vacation they could write off, and most important – a chance to finally get out of town. After taking the entire month of December off, they had been back at work for three whole weeks. Finally! Some light at the end of the tunnel.

Sundance became not about showing but selling. Bidding wars broke out for desired projects. Novice meggers were getting signed by the major ten-percentereries. Show business had arrived at the slopes.

Thus it became much harder to get your film accepted by Sundance. The amount of entries swelled to a ridiculous number. And since investors figured out there was gold in them ‘thar Utah hills, they started making movies with ringers. Known actors began appearing in these small films. Then big actors. Needless to say, these were now the films being selected. And why not? More buzz for the festival. Movie stars up close and personal. Ben Affleck getting out of a cab!

Now there are big press conferences, lavish parties, national coverage. I find it interesting that there are reviews of Sundance movies even though 99.9999999% of the readers haven’t seen them and have no access to them. It’s one thing when there are panel discussions for critics for TV shows that will premier in a few weeks. It’s another for movies at best will appear in your neighborhood art theatre in eight months or a year. So why do I care how Rashida Jones got her Sundance movie made? She got her movie made because she’s Rashida Jones. How did the kid who sold his stamp collection to fund a feature-length movie, filmed it entirely on his iPhone, and edited it off an app he uploaded – how did he get his movie made and accepted? The trouble is there are very few if any stories like that anymore, at least at Sundance.

So when I read that movies starring Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, Nick Offerman, Amber Tamblyn, Bruce Dern, Keanu Reeves, John Krasinski, Sam Elliott, Krsyten Ritter, Carrie Preston, Aubrey Plaza, Elizabeth Olsen, Abbi Jacobson, Allison Brie, and Molly Shannon (to name but a few) have beaten the odds to make the long journey to Sundance I have to scoff. The only way Jay & Silent Bob break into Sundance now is if Kristen Stewart directs their motion picture.

And then this weekend, the studio that produced the ABC sitcom DOWNWARD DOG got Sundance to screen four episodes for a full house screening in the hopes that the strong reaction will change ABC's mind about the upcoming series.  It is slated to premier in the summer, pretty much as a throwaway.  So has that what the festival has now become, a way to better position network television series?   

I miss the Sundance Film Festival.