Cooper Raiff Sold a Movie at Sundance for $15 Million, What Happens to Your Career After a Deal That Big? ‘It Makes You Too Confident,’ He Says

Zack Sharf

26 January 2025 at 7:22 pm·2-min read

Cooper Raiff Sold a Movie at Sundance for $15 Million, What Happens to Your Career After a Deal That Big? ‘It Makes You Too Confident,’ He Says

Cooper Raiff is back at Sundance and joined the Variety Studio presented by Audible to talk about his big return to the Park City festival. The director is world premiering his first television series “Hal & Harper” at Sundance. The project was made independently, which surprised some considering his last movie, “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” became one of the biggest breakouts of the 2022 fest with a huge $15 million sale to Apple. So what does a deal of that size actually lead to?

“It makes you too confident,” Cooper told Variety‘s Angelique Jackson. “Because of that deal, I thought, ‘Let’s just do it with television.’ That’s what I told everyone. We’re really braving the storm with the series. ‘Cha Cha’ was sold on the backs of so many indie movies. With this, we’re trying to sell this show…so it has to be this undeniable thing to these streamers and these networks. But it made me too confident.”

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“I am so grateful that it happened because it gave me the freedom to make something that I wanted to make,” Raiff added. “It’s the passion project I always wanted to make.”

Raiff stars in “Hal & Harper” opposite Mark Ruffalo, Lili Reinhart, Addison Timlin and Havana Rose Liu. The series centers on two siblings forced to grow up too fast by their single father. “Hall & Harper” is seeking distribution at Sundance. The project is Raiff’s first television series. His feature directorial debut, “Shithouse” was a SXSW premiere and won the grand jury prize for best narrative feature. His second film was “Cha Cha,” which sold to Apple for $15 million.

Watch the full “Hal & Harper” video interview from Sundance above.

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