Sex, Lies, and Videotape

You guys might know him from the Ocean's Eleven trilogy.

It's only three films, right? Trilogy, but he also did Sex, Lies, and Videotape.

He's done so many amazing films.

He truly is a brilliant, brilliant man.

... you know, 'cause, you know, just trying to sort of portray like the kind of the Kafkaesque nature of the guy's work.

And, uh, and I said, "Well, this is, you know, a, a radical departure obviously from Sex, Lies, and Videotape." And he goes, "Well, I just wanted it to be clear that I am not, nor have I ever intended to be John Cassavetes." Uh, [laughs] you know?

Oh, okay.

And so like from the get-go-

But John says the breakout success of one movie in particular quickly transformed how the industry saw the festival.

The inflection point at Sundance was 1989 when Soderbergh brought Sex, Lies, and Videotape.

That changed everything.

Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies, and Videotape was this low-budget feature film that took the festival by storm and eventually went on to gross over $36 million.

And John says that kind of profit margin demonstrated to the whole Hollywood ecosystem that independent art house films could compete with studio blockbusters.

After that, Hollywood studios started opening their own specialty divisions dedicated to acquiring and producing independent films, and Sundance became one of the biggest markets for all those new indies, teeming with movie stars, up-and-coming directors, corporate buyers, and sales agents like John.

Yeah

... there's a lot of Sex Lies to this.

There's some-

Yeah

... a lot of actors changed.

Um, the OC and Sex, Lies, and Videotape became a whole new guy with a different hair color.

Mm.

Uh, his wife became a whole new person.