I cannot reilterated how important distribution is, without it you have no way of making money from your production.
It sounds obvious but most first time producers get so wrapped up in “THEIR” production that they come to believe falsely that “if they make it the distributors will come”. To refer to the old saying “that only happens in the movies”. The Commercial reality is a lot harder, yes it has been known that a film gets picked up by a distributor after its made but usually only if the producer has spent a reasonable amount on it and it has decent production values. In any case the distributor can see what is being offered for sale and unless the production is something “out of the box”, the distributor sets the price not the producer.
So here again we see a prime example of the base issue. The producer takes all the risk but gets little of the reward.