Studios and streamers did their buying at AFM 2026, the American Film Market in Los Angeles, in blocks of countries. Amazon MGM Studios took all rights to Russell Crowe’s Bluefly in 11 territories or territory groups in a single deal, Screen reported on 11 November, and Lionsgate, Disney’s Buena Vista International and Netflix each bought two territories, a whole region or a whole film at once. In the same days, finished festival films and a star-led thriller still in post-production sold the way independent films always have: one distributor per country, 8 to 17 deals per film.
The split matters to anyone who sells or buys films outside the studio system. A producer with a package a studio wants can close a large share of the world with one signature. A distributor that buys country by country gets what the studios leave: finished arthouse films, genre titles, and the territories carved out of the bigger deals. This piece is built from 11 titles and packages whose sales FilmBunch reported between 9 and 13 November, as the market opened at the Fairmont Century Plaza. It covers deal structure, not money: no price was disclosed in any of them.
Key facts
- Amazon MGM Studios: all rights to Bluefly in 11 territories or territory groups, including the UK, Canada, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, in one deal with Highland Film Group (Screen, 11 November)
- Lionsgate: North America and the UK on Alma Har’el’s Wet; US and UK rights to the Hungarian series Rise of the Raven. Buena Vista International: all of Latin America on Mare Nostrum. Netflix: Fairytale in New York, bought from Lionsgate
- Country-by-country sales in the same week: The Spiral 17 deals, Growth of the Soil 15, Woman Unknown 15, The Marshal 13, I Is Another 8, all as announced and cumulative
- Prices: undisclosed in every deal listed here
- The American Film Market runs from 10 to 15 November 2026
AFM 2026, deals reported 9–13 November Six deals in which one buyer took several countries or films at once Announced deals only. Territory groups (for example Scandinavia or Benelux) count as one. No prices were disclosed. Sources: Screen; Deadline; Variety. Compiled by FilmBunch from its own reports.
Amazon MGM bought most of Europe for one film
The biggest block went to Amazon MGM. Its Bluefly deal covers the UK, Australia and New Zealand, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Scandinavia, Benelux, Switzerland and Canada. Screen Queensland said cameras were rolling on the Gold Coast on the day the deal was reported. The US was not on any published list.
The territory list makes more sense next to Amazon MGM’s distribution plans. Under a pact signed in June 2025, Sony releases Amazon MGM’s films in cinemas outside North America, but only until the studio has offices of its own in each market. At its first CineEurope presentation in June, Amazon MGM said it was building teams in eight markets: Spain, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Brazil and Australia. Six of those eight are in the Bluefly deal. The first handover now has a date: Amazon MGM will release films in French cinemas itself from The Thomas Crown Affair on 3 March 2027, replacing Sony Pictures Entertainment France, then The Haunting of Hotel Transylvania on 6 October, with two more untitled titles later in 2027 and five in 2028, according to Boxoffice Pro and Screen.
What Amazon has not said is how it will release Bluefly: in cinemas, on Prime Video, or a mix by market. The two markets missing from its list are telling. Mexico and Brazil sit inside Latin America, which Highland Film Group sold separately to the independent California Filmes. Highland also sold Poland, Romania, Hungary, the former Yugoslavia and India to local buyers, one deal at a time.
Lionsgate, Disney and Netflix bought in blocks too
Lionsgate bought smaller blocks, matched to its own release network. It took North America and the UK on Wet, Alma Har’el’s second narrative feature, with Connor Storrie and Rebecca Ferguson, from Fifth Season and 193, a Legendary company. The film does not shoot until 2027. Its television arm took US and UK rights to Rise of the Raven, the ten-part Hungarian period drama known at home as Hunyadi, from Beta Film. Lionsgate Studios’ annual report for the year to 31 March 2026 says it distributes films itself in the US and the UK, and through a sub-distributor in Canada; in other territories it licenses films to local partners. Canada is included in the Wet deal, and was already with CBC on the series.
Disney’s distribution arm bought a whole region. Buena Vista International took theatrical and all-media rights for Latin America on Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat’s Mare Nostrum, with Antonio Banderas, four months before it starts shooting in Bilbao. It was the first territory HanWay Films announced for the film.
Netflix went further and bought the film itself. After an auction, it acquired the action thriller Fairytale in New York, starring Aaron Pierre and directed by Jalmari Helander, from Lionsgate, which will produce it while Netflix distributes. No territory sales were announced alongside it.
Bulk buying is not only a studio habit. DuBow Media Distribution, an independent, took all rights in North and South America to six Asian genre films from EST N8 in one package, led by the Indonesian horror titles Danur: The Last Chapter and Janur Ireng: Sewu Dino The Prequel.
What the studio deals have in common is timing. Leaving aside the finished Rise of the Raven series and DuBow’s package of released films, every title above was bought before it was finished, and three of them before shooting had begun, on the strength of a cast, a director and a script.
Finished festival films sold one country at a time
The films that arrived at the market finished, with festival prizes and Oscar submissions behind them, sold the other way.
Beta Cinema sold Norway’s Oscar entry, Hans Petter Moland’s Growth of the Soil, to 15 territories or territory groups, 10 of them in Europe, with Greenwich Entertainment taking North America. Le Pacte closed a North American deal and 16 other sales on Italy’s entry, Paolo Strippoli’s The Spiral (L’estranea), from Vertigo Releasing in the UK to Pancinema in South Korea. Deadline later reported that New Line Cinema had taken remake rights and the original in the US, Canada and seven Asian markets, with a limited US cinema release this year; Le Pacte has not confirmed that this is the same deal. Cohen Media Group’s US deal for May el-Toukhy’s Venice Golden Lion winner Woman Unknown brought its publicly named distribution deals to 15 by our count. Beta Cinema sold Felix Randau’s Locarno drama I Is Another, with Claes Bang, to eight territories, each on an all-rights deal.
Star casting alone did not change the method. Epic Pictures sold The Marshal, Andrew Baird’s thriller with Guy Pearce, to 13 territories or territory groups on the market’s opening day, nine of them in Europe, while the film was still in post-production. Each buyer is a local distributor in its own market, and no North American distributor has been named.
AFM 2026, announced deals, cumulative Separate distribution deals per film, sold country by country Number of announced distribution deals per film, as reported by 13 November 2026. Territory groups count as one deal. Announced and cumulative: some deals were made before the market. Counts are not comparable with prices or revenue, none of which was disclosed. Sources: The Hollywood Reporter; Deadline; Variety; Screen; TrustNordisk; Beta Cinema. Compiled by FilmBunch.See the data
Film Announced deals The Spiral 17 Growth of the Soil 15 Woman Unknown 15 The Marshal 13 I Is Another 8 
The same independent buyers keep appearing
Lay the buyer lists side by side and the country-by-country market turns out to be a small circle of companies. Palace Films took Australia and New Zealand on Growth of the Soil, The Spiral and I Is Another. Beta Film has Bulgaria on all three of those and on Woman Unknown; it belongs to the same group as Beta Cinema, which sold two of them. California Filmes bought Latin America on The Spiral and Woman Unknown, and on the part of Bluefly Amazon did not take. Vertigo Releasing has the UK on both The Spiral and The Marshal. A Contracorriente Films has Spain on Growth of the Soil and The Marshal, and Karpat Media has Romania on Bluefly and The Marshal.
They are also the companies that pick up what is left when a studio takes the large markets, as the films sold both ways show. Lionsgate’s deal leaves 193 to sell Wet in the rest of the world. Rise of the Raven had already sold country by country to CBC in Canada, Rai in Italy and SBS in Australia before Lionsgate took the US and UK. The Julia Set shows the same order: Sony Pictures Classics took the US and much of the world in October, and HanWay then sold the remaining territories to 12 distributors during the market.
The case against
The sample is ours, and it is small. These are the sales of 11 titles and packages whose deals FilmBunch reported in five days, not a census of the market; many AFM deals are never announced, and others will be announced after the market closes on Sunday 15 November. The festival counts are cumulative. Five of Woman Unknown’s deals were in place before its Venice premiere in September, so its 15 are not 15 new deals this week.
Multi-territory buying is not new either. Studios and streamers have bought worldwide or multi-country rights for years, and Lionsgate’s deals cover the US and the UK, where it distributes films and series itself, and, on Wet, Canada, where it uses a theatrical sub-distributor. The country-by-country method also works. Growth of the Soil reached buyers on five continents, and two public funds covered close to half of I Is Another’s estimated budget before it sold at all.
Most important, no prices were disclosed. Nothing here shows that one model pays producers more than the other, or that independent distributors are losing money. The evidence is about structure and access: who gets to buy which films, and when.
Our reading
Our finding: in the deals we reported this week, the market split along two lines. Studio-backed buyers took unmade, star-led projects in blocks of countries matched to their own distribution, as Amazon MGM did on Bluefly in the markets where it is building teams to replace Sony. Finished festival and genre films still found their audiences one country at a time, through a recurring set of independent distributors who also take the territories the studios leave behind. For a sales agent, a studio block brings certainty early. The cost is that the remaining territories carry less weight and fewer bidders. For an independent distributor, the risk is that the star-led titles reach the market already half sold.
Next milestone: the market closes on 15 November, and two gaps from this sample may close with it: a US buyer for Bluefly and a North American deal for The Marshal. Le Pacte has yet to confirm whether New Line, which Deadline reported had taken the original in the US and Canada, is the unnamed North American buyer for The Spiral. The clearest test of Amazon MGM’s own distribution comes in early March, when The Thomas Crown Affair opens through Amazon MGM in France on 3 March. Screen dates the UK opening to the next day, through Amazon MGM Studios, and the US opening to 5 March. Attend, a new marketplace for booking independent films directly into US cinemas, launched at the same market, a sign that some sellers are looking for routes around distributors altogether.
How we counted
The sales examined here are those of 11 titles and packages whose deals FilmBunch reported between 9 and 13 November 2026, with each film’s announced buyer list as published by its sales agent or the trade that carried it. They are a selection, not every AFM sale FilmBunch covered in those days. A territory group sold as one deal, such as Scandinavia or Benelux, counts as one territory. The Spiral’s 17 is its North American deal plus the 16 other buyers The Hollywood Reporter listed. Woman Unknown’s 15 is FilmBunch’s count of the deals named by TrustNordisk and Deadline. Counts are cumulative from the start of each film’s sales and exclude unannounced deals.
Sources
- Screen, Amazon MGM Studios buys major territories on Bluefly (11 November 2026)
- Boxoffice Pro (France), Amazon MGM Studios dates its first French releases (6 November 2026)
- Screen International, Amazon MGM Studios moves into French theatrical distribution (9 November 2026)
- Screen International, Amazon MGM Studios’ first CineEurope slate presentation (June 2026)
- Deadline, Lionsgate acquires Alma Har’el’s Wet (11 November 2026)
- Variety, Lionsgate acquires US and UK rights to Rise of the Raven (10 November 2026)
- C21Media, Lionsgate, CBC, Rai among buyers for Rise of the Raven (10 November 2026)
- Deadline, Fairytale in New York from Netflix and Lionsgate (13 November 2026)
- Variety, Mare Nostrum picked up by Buena Vista International for Latin America (11 November 2026)
- Deadline, EST N8 closes six-title Americas deal with DuBow Media (12 November 2026)
- Deadline, Beta Cinema’s Growth of the Soil deals (10 November 2026)
- Variety, Growth of the Soil sells to North America, UK, Germany, Spain and more (10 November 2026)
- The Hollywood Reporter, Italy’s Oscar entry The Spiral lands North American distribution, sells wide for Le Pacte (11 November 2026)
- Screen International, The Marshal territory sales (10 November 2026)
- Deadline, Woman Unknown gets US deal during AFM (11 November 2026)
- TrustNordisk, Memento acquires Woman Unknown for France as TrustNordisk closes deals across multiple territories (18 September 2026)
- Beta Cinema, international deals for I Is Another (9 November 2026)
- Variety, The Julia Set sells out for HanWay (12 November 2026)
- Deadline, New Line buys remake and US rights to The Spiral (12 November 2026)
- Lionsgate Studios, annual report (Form 10-K) for the year ended 31 March 2026, filed 27 May 2026