Fenkel: You dont know how to control yourself. BREAKING: John Hodges, one of the founding members of A24, has announced his departure from the production and distribution studio to focus on future opportunities. 2023 Variety Media, LLC. Hes not gonna be able to do this right now. Our first release. We tried to put together a slate in, like, four months, as opposed to just really growing it, building it in the right way. Fenkel: Look at The Witch. But then also do things that other companies arent doing. But in general distribution is like plumbing: unseen, unnoticed, and notable only when it malfunctions. So when I saw that, I was like, Okay, those guys, they know what they are doing.. And [my producer] kept saying it, and I kept thinking, Okay, at some point Ill figure out what hes talking about. A24 typically pays a bit more for these movies than it does the ones the it buys itself, andlike most VOD content providersit doesnt make its grosses public. A24 Net Worth & Earnings (2023) Leave it to Jim Jarmusch to make the coolest vampire movie ever. A24 is an American independent entertainment company that specializes in film and television production, as well as film distribution. But I do remember finally looking over, because I didnt know where they were sitting, and I spotted Dan Katz and Dave Fenkel, and, man, the smile on their faces! Katz: Tuesday morning, I remember, we had a little whiskey for him. But I think in experiences since then, doing mid-budget or relatively low-budget movies, if you try to do a toned-down version of thatIve just seen it not work, again and again and again. And it was the hair and makeup people. Still, A24 has never enjoyed a box-office breakout hit. Katz: We did great movies. Fenkel: Id love to say from the first cut we knew. I dont think it was related to her professional career. [27], A24 distributes and produces around 18 to 20 films a year. And, I mean, there was one moment in the movie when my character was booed and hissed so vociferously, I felt as though I was in a Roman arena and my life was at stake. His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. Hollywood is run by accountants at this point. They have a very good understanding of the Zeitgeist. All rights reserved. In the last few years, there have been a spate ofindie horror films that have broken into the mainstream. With Hodges leaving, the. Prior to A24, all had worked extensively in film and production before leaving their current positions to co-found the company, originally A24 Films, which specialized in film distribution. Judging by the fact that the trailer racked up more than 3 million views in its first week online, the crowds are ready with their pitchforks. Surely theyve learned by now that theres a ceiling for arthouse films these days. Fenkel: Well, it wasnt a heartbreak, because they wouldnt actually call us back. "I'm thrilled to be joining the team at Jax,". At a time when young people are increasingly going to the movies only for blockbuster spectacle, A24 has established itself as the film industrys most forward-thinking company by releasing the kind of midsized, stylish, quality films that seemed on the verge of going extinct, transforming them into a collective theatrical experience, and aiming them squarely at a demographic that would rather watch movies on their phones. People are like, Oh, I would have green-lit that! Im like, Come on!, Sacco: We had been talking about finding a person to produce for a long time. Like I had glandular problems. And integral and critical for the film to rise on its own feet. Production Company. So I just called the guy. I am incredibly proud of the company we created and of the amazing team at A24 that has been integral to its success. You get a movie with them and it represents something. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Nathan (Oscar Isaac) and Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno). Gif excerpt from the film Under the Skin via A24 Films. Jenkins: I just would never allow myself to believe that something I made could win Best Picture. When your business model is predicated on treating each movie like an event, how do you get bigger without changing who you are? We wanted to deliver in a meaningful way. March 3, 2018. Aizenberg: I was at the Q&As at the ArcLight [in Los Angeles], and I remember taking a picture of the screen, and then all of a sudden it was like every screen at the ArcLight: Spring Breakers, Spring Breakers, Spring Breakers. The company, improbably, was based in New York, not Los Angeles. Gif excerpt from the film The End of the Tour via A24 Films. Since its inception in 2012, A24 has become one of the hottest destinations for indie filmmakers, ushering such edgy films to theaters as The Bling Ring and Spring Breakers. Sure, were talking about an aggressively uncommercial director whose previous feature was called Trash Humpers, but the success of Spring Breakersand how it was achieveddemonstrated that theres still an audience for the kind of challenging and essential medium-budget movies that most in the business left for dead. Across 96 films released at the time of this article, the average Production Budget on each film rounds out to a cool $6 million, with the Box Office revenue across the 96 films adding up to $798 million. You know what? Trench coat was enough. Katz: We broke the record that weekend. Agent. For a truly great film like this, being excluded from the conversation into which A24 works so hard to insinuate its main slate can feel like a fate worse than Harvey Weinstein. 2023 Deadline Hollywood, LLC. He later left A24 on March 2018 to focus on future opportunities. Oh my god, its new! It was like being in some kind of arena. Ravi Nandan (co-head of TV, A24): Paramount Vantage, which had released, like, There Will Be Blood and a bunch of other movies, was [folded into] Paramount. As of 2023[update], the company's films had received a total of 49 Academy Award nominations. When we started, we wanted it to be about the films and filmmakers, not us, Katz told the Hollywood Reporter at the end of 2013, and that culture remains evident in all aspects of their business. Like Under the Skin, Locke, Enemy. Sasha Lane (actress, American Honey): They were like, You guys are who you are and were not going to change that. No one had to be perfected for anything. We had a good history. Likewise, A24 loves Sundance acquisition Mississippi Grind, a tremendously appealing riff on Robert Altmans California Split that co-stars Ryan Reynolds and Ben Mendelsohn as compulsive gamblers on a road trip to nowhere. First movies gonna be so exciting! And I remember everyone came back from that test screening. Your vision is incredible.. It wasnt disrespectful. A24 has also been nominated and won many Golden Globes, British Academy Film Awards, and Critics' Choice Movie Awards. Everybody was talking a few years ago how cinema had died. Garland: I didnt know what Tinder was until the festival. Aizenberg: There was a week in January where we dropped the trailer of Spring Breakers. It made me crack up. Set in 1630s New England, a family is banished from their village and starts to unravel when their baby vanishes. Fellow founding partners Daniel Katz and David Fenkel will continue to oversee the NYC-based indie studio, which has seen great success with Oscar-winning films such as Room, Ex Machina and last years surprise Best Picture winner Moonlight.. Katz, Fenkel, Hodges launch A24 - Variety Itd be very unlikely for that to happen. This story appears in the summer issue of GQ Style. Your eyes dont gloss over James Franco as a trap music Jesus. The division of labor is clear, but there arent any titles for the companys employees, who all work elbow to elbow in a single room. Trey Edward Schultz's moody, atmospheric thriller plays on our country's present division and how mistrust in others can come back to harm us. Villeneuve: If my memorys good, I was amongst their, not their first movies, but they were a young company at the time. The films were darlingsincluding David Michds The Rover, starring Robert Pattinson; Denis Villeneuves Enemy, starring Jake Gyllenhaal; and Jonathan Glazers Under the Skin, starring Scarlett Johanssonand, by and large, box-office underperformers. In between, A24 went from being a tiny, disorganized room of eight or so people to being the place where big stars like Robert Pattinson and Scarlett Johansson go to make small, strange movies, and auteurs like Jonathan Glazer and Denis Villeneuve go to make deeply personal films unmolested by studio notes or clueless executives. When I was explaining to people what I was doing, it felt like a political campaign. Larson: I couldnt be more grateful for an experience that changed the course of my life and career immeasurably. This elegant, yet sadistic horror film from Austria resembles Michael Hanekes Funny Games, yet the home invader was under the victims noses all along. That was 2013. Yes, Scream VI Marketing Is Behind the Creepy Ghostface Sightings Causing Scares Across the U.S. David Oyelowo, Taylor Sheridan's 'Bass Reeves' Series at Paramount+ Casts King Richard Star Demi Singleton (EXCLUSIVE), Star Trek: Discovery to End With Season 5, Paramount+ Pushes Premiere to 2024. Ainzenberg: I remember I went and had to meet with Selena Gomezs team to prove that we were real people and we were gonna be legitimate in releasing the film. And while they invited me into their headquarters to get a feel for the place and chat on background with the core team, they stressed that theyd prefer their movies to speak for themselves. A24 knew that Slow West was great well before it premiered to rave reviews, but the company also recognized that it was an odd duck, neither broad enough to be a prestige picture nor strange enough to galvanize a legion of fans. I actually tied with Jared [Leto], who obviously won the Oscar that year, for L.A. Film Critics. The best scares always come from unexpected places. Kleiner: They had the movie, I want to say, 22, 23 weeks in theatrical release? There was this weird time. So I suppose the question now surrounding A24 is what Fenkel and Katz plan to make of it. So everything had to be explained to me, and by the time it was explained, it was over. So I think they were hoping, and discovering, that they might be able to do that with The Witch. The films backers will be made whole, its makers will get another chance at bat, and its distributors will continue to enjoy the financial solvency provided by the DirecTV dealnot to mention the $50 million line of credit the company secured last fall. By surgically inserting each release into the zeitgeist, it has paved a new road for provocative, modestly sized cinema, bridging the gap between microbudget indies and monolithic studio products in much the same way Italys Autostrada A24 connects Rome to Teramo. And so anytime you speak with someone whos not a pure accountant, is not a pencil pusher? That was the first time it screened for U.S. audiences. They rented some office space in Manhattan. Take its efforts on Spring Breakers, for example. [25], On November 13, 2019, A24 entered into a premium cable television broadcast deal with Showtime Networks, covering all film releases through November 1, 2022. Right after we did those three films, I dont think we had really purchased a film for the following year. We allowed them to come on set to see what was happening, and they in turn were sharing their release plans and their marketing materials, and we were commenting on that. That shift points to a greater move afoot at A24, as the company begins to develop its own projects from within. Hodges had run A24 with David Fenkel and Daniel Katz as a ruling troika, albeit one that operated without offices (located in Chelsea, the company was known for its open space and banquette tables). Heavey: People were, like, crying. 2023 The Hollywood Reporter, LLC. GQ may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. And, like, within two blocks, I have to stop. The photo has been replaced. When I arrived at A24s office, in an anonymous building so close to the western lip of lower Manhattan that it can practically taste New Jersey, my fears that the company might be growing too fast werent exactly assuaged by learning that within weeks it was moving to an enormous office closer to midtown.