Arguably, a film such as Smart People is part of the problem. A scenario featuring Sex and the City's Sarah Jessica Parker, Juno's Ellen Page and Dennis Quaid promised much and delivered little. It achieved theatrical distribution due to its cast but represented a lazy US independent film scene.
Favreau is optimistic, though. "Something's going to break through and do something special, but there's so much white noise out there and the distribution system is so anaemic that all of the small distributors that were around when I came up have been snapped up by the big ones," he says.