Insight The “Fake Demand” Problem: A Growing Reality in Today’s Film Market

[admin]

One of the most noticeable yet rarely discussed shifts in today’s film industry is what many professionals quietly refer to as “fake demand.” The market is full of meetings, positive feedback, and apparent interest, yet more and more producers and sales agents are realizing that much of this interest simply doesn’t convert into actual deals. This isn’t something you’ll see framed directly in official headlines. Instead, it appears under softer terms like “buyer selectivity,” “longer decision cycles,” or “market correction.” In practice, however, it often means that conversations start, momentum builds… and then nothing closes.
This is not limited to a single market. It’s happening across the board whether in Cannes, Berlin, or the AFM. The only difference is that in highly concentrated environments like Cannes, it becomes much more visible.
Buyers are still present, still taking meetings, still engaging. But in many cases, they are gathering information, tracking trends, or keeping options open rather than committing. Decision-making has slowed down, internal approvals have increased, and risk tolerance has clearly decreased.
As a result, film markets are evolving. They are becoming less about immediate deal-making, and more about initiating decisions that may or may not materialize later. This creates a new kind of challenge. Generating interest is no longer the hard part. Converting that interest into execution is.
So the real question is no longer whether demand exists in the market, but how much of that demand is actually real.
What are you seeing right now is the interest you’re getting translating into deals, or is it increasingly just part of the process?

 

[Ryan]

This is a very accurate observation, and I think alongside “fake demand”, there’s another shift becoming just as important: execution risk. It’s no longer only about whether there is interest, or even whether a deal gets signed, but what actually happens after that. More and more cases are emerging where a deal looks closed on paper, but in reality the process slows down, drifts, or changes direction entirely. Sometimes communication drops after contracts are signed. In other cases, timelines start slipping, or terms begin to shift often not in favor of the producer. And increasingly, payment itself becomes uncertain or significantly delayed.
What makes this more complex is that this is no longer just about isolated cases. In certain regions and market segments, these risks appear more frequently. Not necessarily due to bad intent, but because of differences in business practices, financing structures, or operational reliability. That changes how deals need to be evaluated. It’s no longer enough to ask who is interested the more important question is who can actually execute. Who has a track record of closing and paying. Who follows through after the signature, not just before it. In that sense, “fake demand” may not mean that demand isn’t real, but that the process has become less linear and more fragile. Interest exists, deals can happen but execution is what ultimately determines whether any real value is created. The market may not be weaker, but it has definitely become more complex.
Curious how others are approaching this are you filtering partners more aggressively based on execution reliability, and have you experienced cases where a “closed” deal didn’t play out as expected?