Sales Agent vs Distributor: Who Really Makes You Money?
Ever wondered why so many filmmakers walk away from a film convinced they were let down?
The sales agent didn’t push hard enough...
The distributor didn’t market it properly (or at all)...
The deal looked good on paper, but the money never really came back.
I hear this story constantly. I've told it before.
And sometimes, yes, partners underperform. Fair shout.
But far more often, the problem isn’t who worked on the film after it was finished.
It’s that the financial outcome was already locked in long before any of them got involved.
Because sales agents and distributors don’t make films profitable.
Even if you think that's their job, it's not.
Sales agents and distributors monetise decisions that were made upstream.
If you don’t understand that distinction, you’ll keep blaming the wrong people and repeating the same mistakes on the next film.
So let’s talk about the mistake filmmakers keep making.
The core mistake
Filmmakers believe that downstream partners make the film work financially.
They don’t.
Sales agents and distributors monetise what already exists. They don’t fix weak positioning, they don’t solve budget-market mismatches, and they don’t rescue films that were never set up to sell to an audience.
Yet again and again, as filmmakers we:
Over-budget films hoping a good sales agent will save our investors
Disregard the audience and who the film is actually for
Confuse doing a deal with actually recouping
This is where filmmakers get jaded and careers stall due to resentment.
What filmmakers think happens
Here’s the typical mental model:
Sales Agent → takes your film to the market, creates demand, drives competition
Distributor → releases the film, markets it, and makes money flow back upstream
In this version of reality, your job is to:
Make a good film
Get it into a festival
Hand it off to professionals
And then… it works.
The problem is that this model ignores incentives.
What actually happens
Let’s strip it back.
Sales agents
Sales agents are primarily paid via:
Commission on sales (often 15-25%)
Sometimes volume over optimisation
They are incentivised to sell the film. Period.
A quick deal today often beats a slower, better one tomorrow, especially when they’re handling multiple titles.
It’s the same with real estate agents. They prefer to sell your house at any price (and secure their commission) rather than price too high and not sell it.
But let's not be too harsh as a great sales agent will align their incentives with the film's, ensuring you both maximise long term returns.
Distributors
Distributors:
Take fees off the top
Recoup expenses before you see a dollar
Downside risk is capped at their DG and costs
They are incentivised to:
Maximise their slate
Limit exposure
Recoup their costs first
Not to make your film wildly profitable.
None of this makes them bad actors, just rational ones.
The uncomfortable truth
No one downstream fixes upstream decisions.
By the time a sales agent or distributor enters the picture:
Your budget is already set
Your genre positioning is already defined
Your audience assumptions are already baked in
Your cast level has already priced the film into a lane
If those decisions don’t align with market reality, no deal structure will save you.
This is why filmmakers can:
Secure recognisable distributors
Premiere at solid festivals
Announce deals publicly
…and still struggle to meaningfully recoup.
The part no one explains
There’s another layer to this that rarely gets talked about.
Your economics are not the same as your sales agents or distributor’s.
A distributor might pay $100,000 for the rights to your film.
Their job is to recoup that $100k plus expenses and make a profit.
That’s a completely rational, achievable target.
But your reality is very different.
You might have:
$500,000 of private investment to recoup
Deferred fees
Years of opportunity cost tied up in the project
Which means your break-even point isn’t $100k.
It’s more like 10x that.
Because the distributor is going to recoup their DG, marketing and distribution costs, and then take their commission which is typically 50%.
So when a distributor “does fine” (i.e. recoups their outlay, makes a profit, moves on) you can still be sitting there wondering why the film technically sold but financially went nowhere.
No one is lying. And no one has necessarily failed.
You’re just operating under completely different economic realities.
And if you don’t understand that gap, you’ll keep expecting downstream partners to solve a problem they were never exposed to in the first place.
So who does make you money?
The person who makes you money is the one who controls decisions before the market:
Budget relative to demand
Casting relative to sales value
Genre relative to audience behaviour
Territory strategy before contracts are signed
In other words: YOU.
Or more specifically, the producer who understands how money actually flows through the system.
Sales agents and distributors are important. They are necessary.
But they are not the commercial engine.
And thinking otherwise is simply shifting the blame.
The better question to ask
Don’t ask: “Should I go with a sales agent or a distributor?”
Ask: “At what point are the financial outcomes of this film already decided?”
If you can’t answer that then the deal you’re chasing won’t fix the problem.
It will just reinforce it.
If this reframing feels uncomfortable, that’s a good sign.
It means you’re starting to think like a producer should.
— Alexi
If you’re financing your debut feature film, start here.
