Sundance Deals (cont’d)

Lionsgate has ‘Winning Season’:

Lionsgate has picked up North American and U.K. rights to James Strouse’s comedy “The Winning Season.”

Strouse is a Sundance vet. His pic “Grace is Gone” sold to the Weinstein Co. “Season” was a late addition, joining the Premieres section in December.

Humpday Sells to Mark Cuban’s Magnolia Pictures:

It seems the big sales at Sundance have almost all been comedies so far, or at least it looks like that’ll be the case for the time being. Humpday, the “bro” comedy we reviewed a few days ago, was sold at Sundance today to Magnolia Pictures. Six various studios were competing for the rights, but Magnolia won over with a reported six-figure deal. In a very interesting change from the norm, they have decided to release it via video-on-demand first (on Mark Cuban’s

HDNet) before putting it into theaters one month later. This seems like it could be a good model for building up early buzz before getting crowds into theaters later.