LOS ANGELES — What will be the difference between this year’s Sundance and the Sundance of 2006, when independent film was last riding high?

About $100 million in prospective box-office receipts, if the trend line holds.

As art-house movie buyers and sellers visit Park City, Utah, for the annual Sundance Film Festival, which starts on Thursday, they face the reality that most of the esoteric fare will land on small screens, not big ones.

In total, American-made films from the last festival — led by hits like “The Way, Way Back” and “Fruitvale Station” — have taken in about $160 million at the domestic box office. That is down by about a third from 2006, when the economy was soaring and Sundance standouts like “Little Miss Sunshine,” “The Illusionist” and “Thank You for Smoking” contributed to a total festival result of roughly $250 million in domestic ticket sales.

The gap may be even wider this year, as digital-leaning distributors like Magnolia, IFC and Radius-TWC, the boutique division of the boutique Weinstein Company, become the most active buyers. Perhaps half of the 120 films on the Sundance roster will find distribution, said Adam Leipzig, chief executive of Entertainment Media Partners, a film consultancy, “but most of them will not get theatrical distribution.”