John Sloss

It began one cold, bright January morning in a movie theater parking lot in Park City, Utah.

I'd arrived just before the start of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival to meet up with a guy named John Sloss.

Has anybody ever called you Mr. Sundance?

[laughs] Uh, I've been...

John's job is to turn unique pieces of cinematic art into sellable commodities.

Over the next week or so, his mission will be to get a handful of buyers representing some of the biggest companies in entertainment to see the films in his slate and convince them to make a series of multimillion-dollar bets.

John's partner in this endeavor, the sort of hand of the king, is actually his nephew, Eric Sloss.

The three of us are standing in front of a huge crowd of people lining up for the first screening of the festival.

John Ourand wrote a fascinating piece last week that I wanted to talk to you about.

It's about a new company called Vertical Leap, started by a guy named John Sloss.

We'll get into-

Big player

Uh, I, I do like that.

I'm curious what Josh Allen will do with that.

But tell us who John Sloss is.

Creative genius.