Pre-Buys and Pre-Sales: What Changed, and What Still Gets Deals Done

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

A top UK financier said it flat out. Pre-selling a film on a pitch is mostly a thing of the past.

The timeline has slid. Pre-buys that used to close during production now show up in post. Fewer projects land them at all, and when they do, roughly 10% of the minimum guarantee gets paid on signing. The other 90% wait for delivery.

For an independent producer, that reshapes how a film reaches the finish line. So what still clears the bar with a streamer or a major buyer? And what quietly kills a project before anyone opens a term sheet?

• How pre-buys and pre-sales are defined today, and how far the timing has shifted.
• What actually sits inside a pre-buy agreement, and why the long-form terms have to hold.
• The move from the old revenue waterfall to the 2026 version, and where most of the value now lands.
• The small set of factors behind most financing calls, plus what each buyer weighs on top.
• Why theatrical now reads as a cost rather than a return, straight from the people signing cheques.
• How gap financing, MGs, and unsold-territory valuations lock together when a deal needs to close.

Phil Hunt of Headgear Films told us what he has stopped seeing in pre-sales rooms. Blunt read, and it is inside.

Raymond Mansfield of QC Entertainment, with seven Academy nominations to his name, laid out why a theatrical run is a marketing line now, not a revenue line. Full logic in the replay.

Blue Planet 3 drew premium buyers across six continents before post even wrapped. We unpack what made it pre-sellable, and what to do when you don’t have Attenborough on the call.