Saturday, July 4, 2026

Sundance: Amazon Studios Adds $15 Mil Film to Shopping Basket for Third Big Purchase at Festival, Jillian Bell in “Brittany Runs a Marathon”

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Amazon’s check out basket at Sundance now has three big ticket items.

I told you already that Amazon Studios had spent $13 million on one film– Mindy Kaling’s “Late Night” and $14 million on “The Report” with Adam Driver. They want hits, and they want Oscars.

Now Amazon has added to its collection Paul Downs Colaizzo’s “Brittany Runs a Marathon” with Jillian Bell, an actress mostly known from television. Bell doesn’t have a movie career yet, and none of the other actors in the film have a high profile either. So this is more of a gamble.

So yes that’s $42 million on three movies. But Jeff Bezos can afford it. Will they all pay off? This is the opposite philosophy from Amazon’s previous schedule of indie movies from auteurs. Those didn’t work. Maybe these will.

 

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009, where he covered Michael Jackson, and previously wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine in the mid-1990s, where he covered the O.J. Simpson trial. He also edited Fame magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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