The Most Crowd-Pleasing Films Coming Out of Sundance

Every year, the Sundance Film Festival celebrates new voices in independent cinema, debuting films from emerging artists and giving Hollywood a preview of the future. But an audience hit at Sundance won’t necessarily translate to mainstream theaters. As the festival enters its final days, studios are beginning their annual spending spree on its biggest titles, hoping to invest in a project that succeeds commercially as well as critically.

Perhaps it suits an industry still struggling to figure out the future that one of the first sales of the year was essentially a self-aware joke. I refer to the that Neon and Hulu jointly paid for the rights to Max Barbakow’s , an ingenious high-concept romantic comedy starring Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti that is now the most expensive, which went to Fox Searchlight for after sweeping the festival’s major awards (though the film was quickly overwhelmed by controversy over , of which he was acquitted). beat out that figure by adding an intentionally trivial amount to the $17.5 million: 69 cents, a decimal punch line for a colossal sum.