Film & TV Financing: Pre-Buys

This briefing breaks down how pre-buy and pre-sale deals work in 2026, where the stress points are, and what recent successes had in common.

A top UK financier put it plainly. The era of pre-selling on a pitch is mostly over.

The old timeline has shifted. Pre-buys that once happened during production now land in post, fewer projects get them, and when they do, only about 10% of the minimum guarantee tends to be paid on signing. The other 90% wait for delivery.

For an independent producer, that changes how a project reaches the finish line. So what still clears the bar with a streamer or a major buyer, and what quietly takes a project off the table before the conversation even starts? That is the ground this session covers.

• How pre-buys and pre-sales are defined today, and how the timing has moved
• What a pre-buy agreement actually contains, and why the long-form terms have to hold
• The shift from the old revenue waterfall to the 2026 model, and where most of the value now sits
• The handful of factors that decide most financing calls, and what each buyer weighs beyond them
• Why theatrical is being treated as a cost rather than a return, straight from the people writing the cheques
• How gap financing, MGs, and unsold-territory valuations fit together when a deal needs closing
  

Phil Hunt of Headgear Films told us what he has stopped seeing in pre-sales meetings. His read on the market is blunt, and it is inside.

Raymond Mansfield of QC Entertainment, seven Academy nominations behind him, explained why a theatrical run is now a marketing line, not a revenue line. The full logic is in the replay.

Blue Planet 3 pulled premium buyers across six continents before being wrapped. We walk through what made it pre-sellable, and what that means if you don’t have Attenborough.

• Acquisition, programming, and licensing leads at studios, streamers, and broadcasters
• Producers and heads of production raising against pre-sales
• Financiers across debt, equity, and gap
• Sales agents and distributors structuring territory deals