Film, TV writers' strike is boon for Sundance

The Sundance Film Festival is still a month away, but director Stacy Peralta is hearing from movie executives eager for a sneak peek at his latest work, a gang documentary, "Made in America." Peralta has already received 10 such calls, an unusually high number for a documentary this far in advance.

"I was very surprised," Peralta says. "Gracefully, we say, 'Look, we'd like to show you the movie but we're holding our cards close until Sundance,' which is a risk we're taking, as well."

Maybe, this year, not so big a risk. That's because of the 7-week-old strike by film and TV writers who belong to the Writers Guild of America. The walkout has stopped the flow of new scripts coming into Hollywood and is pressuring the studios to stock up on films of all kinds in case the strike drags out long enough to impact the production of new movies. That seems increasingly possible, given the talks' rancorous impasse.

So the film industry is focusing harder than ever on Sundance, the 24-year-old annual film festival in Park City, which begins on Jan. 17. The source of many hits including last year's award-winning "Little Miss Sunshine," Sundance has emerged as an important marketplace for inde-

-pendent filmmakers like Peralta to find distribution for their work.

This year's selection includes a twisted comedy about hitmen by an Irish writer known for his blood-soaked plays; an adaptation of a Michael Chabon novel about young love; and a comedy directed by Barry Levinson starring Robert De Niro as a film producer who finds his career on the wane.

Though the major studios — and their smaller specialty labels that release more modest, independent fare — say they've plenty of movies to weather any strike that lasts into the New Year, many industry executives expect fiercer bidding wars to erupt over a handful of new films.

Indeed, buying a completed film at Sundance, even for multimillions of dollars, could be safer and cheaper than creating a film from scratch, especially with no writers around to tweak an existing script.

"If there is a movie that shows up at Sundance that really feels like a slam dunk, it's going to sell for even more this year, no question," says producer Michael London, whose past credits include the oenophile's delight "Sideways" and last year's thriller "The Illusionist." He has three films screening at Sundance, including the Chabon adaptation, "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh."