Nu Image always did pre-sales (same for Moonstone, Bauer Martinez and most independent companies), that's how they get the job done and always make money. With the attachment of a star, a teaser poster and at least a story treatment if not a script, they go to film markets with impressive line ups of new titles. If they know they can sell a film worldwide for $5M then they'll produce it for $3M or $4M.
Or as my friend from Your Video Store Shelf put it:
"Essentially what happens with a pre-sale is that a reputable company like Nu Image presents some poster art for movies that someone in the office whipped up. The buyers dedicate themselves to paying ‘x’ amount for ‘x’ movies, and knowing how much money they’re guaranteed to get from those pre-sales, Nu Image then sets forth on the path of actually producing the films."
Then with each buyer (otherwise known as foreign or domestic distributor) the relationship between the companies will be different so will be their deal. Sometimes they can exclusive first look at the line up to decide if they pick the movie(s) or not. A lot of the times the lower budgets will come as a package with the deal of a bigger one (as in, for instance "if you take "Righteous Kill" or "Conan" you gotta take "Ninja" etc.). But so a meeting will be set up in Cannes, Berlin or L.A. (AFM) to discuss deals etc...
When a title is licensed and not produced it will usually be replaced: as was "It Waits" by "The Defender", "The Controller" by "The Mechanik" etc...
As for Sony, I was told they already picked up both "Direct Contact" and "Command Performance" for the US territory (my guts tell me they will now take every Dolph movie as long as they do well enough).