Sean Baker Scores Career-Best Paycheck for “Ti Amo!”

Oscar winner Sean Baker has found an unexpected way to inspire future generations of independent filmmakers — at the bank. 

The auteur has secured the first big payday of his career for his follow-up to best picture winner “Anora,” the sex-worker dramedy that made history in 2025 when the Oscars handed Baker four trophies in one night, tying the record set by Walt Disney.

The project in question is “Ti Amo!” which Baker has described as “an ode to the Italian sex comedies of the ’60s and ’70s.” Warner Bros. announced it had won the film last week at CinemaCon in Las Vegas. It was a major flex for the studio’s new indie-centric label Clockwork, run by Christian Parkes (former marketing chief for Neon). 

What they didn’t say onstage at Caesars Palace is that Clockwork bought the distribution rights to “Ti Amo!” for an eye-popping $22 million, five sources familiar with the deal tell Variety. Baked into that number is the film’s budget, which is being financed by FilmNation and is expected to be north of $10 million. The final cost of the film won’t be finalized until Baker completes a script.

However, the surplus will be divided among FilmNation, a few other key production players and Baker, who is poised to earn a multimillion-dollar salary for his work as writer, director, editor and producer of “Ti Amo!” 

For Baker, the pact means greater financial security after years of roughing it in service of his art. His brand is scrappy, by-the-skin-of-our-teeth filmmaking with shoestring budgets and, in early days, shooting “Tangerine” on an iPhone. With Clockwork, Baker will have one distributor overseeing release, marketing and strategy (except in France) for the first time in his career.

“Isn’t it great to see a filmmaker like Sean who has earned his way up finally get rewarded so he can keep getting to make movies his way?” said one executive with knowledge of the deal. 

Baker shopped the project last year to multiple bidders, including Neon and A24 and Disney’s Searchlight Pictures. One offer, for U.S. rights alone, came in at roughly $5 million, two sources say, while others came closer to Clockwork’s deal for global distribution. Baker is not signed to a major talent agency but had Lichter Grossman lawyer James Feldman to negotiate on his behalf. He is managed by Adam Kersh, an indie veteran whose clients include other auteurs like Ira Sachs and Amy Seimetz.

The project was sold as a pitch, sources add. Cameras are expected to roll in September. Another sign of Baker’s post-Oscar power is that the Clockwork sale was not contingent on cast, nor is he expected to hire an A-lister.

The “Ti Amo!” deal comes as indie filmmaking stars are finding it difficult to get fairly compensated for their work. Many projects leave festivals like Sundance or Cannes without distribution, and even those filmmakers that get deals have seen their residuals and back-end participation shrink as streaming has upended the economics of Hollywood. That’s led some to experiment with alternative ways of getting their passion projects to the screen.

“The Brutalist” director Brady Corbet is putting together his next project — an epic tale about the history of the occult in America — without a studio partner. Similarly, Tom Ford has adapted Anne Rice’s novel “Cry to Heaven” as an independently financed feature starring Adele. The hope in both cases is that the movies will get a bigger sale price after screening at a high-profile festival than they would if distribution rights were sold ahead of filming. That’s a bet Baker isn’t taking with “Ti Amo!,” and given the rich deal he secured, why would he?

As revered as he may be among cinephiles, Baker would normally have to pivot to directing a mid-budget or tentpole film or work for a streamer like Netflix to receive this kind of compensation. The latter is a nonstarter, given that Baker is a passionate defender of cinemas. Baker has long been underpaid in comparison with his reputation and influence in the market.

Most of his projects take three years to produce, and he tends to put any money he makes back into his next films. During the awards season run for 2017’s “The Florida Project,” Baker lived in a small West Hollywood apartment. On Oscar night 2025, he and partner Sammy Kwan went home to walk their dogs in-between the ceremony and the after-party. It’s doubtful that Christopher Nolan or Martin Scorsese did the same.