PARK CITY, Utah — The first few days of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival were like a dance in which a handsome bachelor passed up a line of slinky supermodels and asked an ugly little weirdo to dance.
Despite all the big names and Oscar-garlanded talent on hand, the first feature to sell during the festival was a gritty little chiller that takes place entirely inside a coffin. “Buried” stars Ryan Reynolds as a civilian contractor in Iraq who wakes up inside a wooden box buried alive with nothing but a cellphone, a pencil and a lighter to keep him company.
The 90-minute, tension-filled creeper-outer, which drew a packed house full of 20-something hipsters at a midnight showing Sunday, sold to Lionsgate — the studio behind high-concept horror products like the “Saw” franchise — for a reported $3.2 million. That’s fairly big bucks for an indie.
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“Buried,” directed by first-timer Rodrigo Cortés, was one of the most talked-about films at the fest thanks to its easy-to-market premise. Reynolds’ character must use a cellphone (which isn’t his and which is programmed in Arabic) to figure out why he’s in the coffin and what he must do to get out. Meanwhile, cracks are forming in the roof of the coffin and sand is leaking in.
“I hope you all enjoy the film as much as I hated making it,” the star joked at Saturday’s showing. Cortés said he hoped that if people loved it, he would get the credit, but if not, “I’m just the director. I didn’t write this s – – t.”
Meanwhile, bigger movies, such as “Howl,” starring James Franco, Jon Hamm and David Strathairn in a combination biopic about poet Allen Ginsberg and animated dramatization of Ginsberg’s Beat poem, were still looking for a buyer. So were the debut feature from Ridley Scott’s son Jake Scott, “Welcome to the Rileys,” a broken-family drama starring James Gandolfini and Kristen Stewart, and “Blue Valentine,” starring past Oscar nominees Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams in a toxic marriage saga.
“The Company Men,” a movie made by “E.R.” creator John Wells in his debut as big-screen writer-director, is a glossy comedy-drama about corporate layoffs stocked with big names such as Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper and Kevin Costner. But, despite its similarities to this winter’s hit “Up in the Air,” it didn’t immediately find a studio.
Instead, movie distributors, perhaps feeling the recession-hammered marketplace isn’t in the mood for serious fare, were nosing around a bland Monday-nights-on-CBS-style romcom about 20-something relationships in New York City — “Happythankyoumoreplease,” starring and directed by “How I Met Your Mother” star Josh Radnor. Another movie attracting interest was a low-budget horror comedy with no-name actors, “Tucker & Dale vs. Evil.” It’s an “Izods vs. overalls” movie (as the program puts it) in which a gang of peaceful hillbillies is menaced by a gang of crazed college kids. Like “Frozen” (and “The Blair Witch Project”), it was slotted into the Midnight series of genre and exploitation films.
Last year’s big pickup was the Oscar-bait film “Precious.” But so far this year, distributors may be worried about marketing a serious picture. What’s most precious to them? The prospect of selling tickets.