Basner Says He Stopped Berger Rushing Conclave to Venice — SkimNews
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- Glen Basner received the Game Changer Award at the Zurich Summit, joining longtime friend Edward Berger for a one-hour onstage conversation tracing his career from Good Machine to founding FilmNation in 2008.
- FilmNation was launched in 2008 to fill a gap left when Summit and Mandate both became U.S. distributors, becoming the leading American international sales company unaffiliated with domestic distribution.
- Basner revealed he clashed with Berger over Conclave's timing — Berger wanted to debut the film at Venice in May, but Basner and lead producer Tessa Ross insisted it wasn't ready, prompting Berger to reshoot scenes and finish six months later.
- Conclave's pre-sales challenge was conveying a Vatican-set thriller that read on paper like 'a bunch of old men talking in rooms' at a $12M–$15M price tag, until Basner articulated Berger's Parallax View-inspired thriller vision to buyers.
- FilmNation's Bunker (Florian Zeller film starring Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz) took a traditional pre-sales route, with the bulk of international sales tied up at Cannes 2025 and Sony Pictures Classics handling the U.S. deal after the film was completed.
- Basner argued against the packaging route of attaching known talent to mitigate risk, saying FilmNation's history is 'predominantly on films that did not make sense to the marketplace at the beginning.'
- FilmNation has expanded organically from a pure sales company into finance, production, and TV over 18 years, with credits including The Big Sick, Promising Young Woman, Anora, Conclave, and Maria.
Why it matters: Basner's Conclave revelation reframes the $100M hit as a film nearly rushed to Venice before he and Tessa Ross pushed for reshoots — a six-month delay that helped deliver its thriller ambitions. His anti-packaging stance and willingness to back his own valuations produced award-winning Anora and the Cannes 2025 Bunker sales.
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