[laughs] I remember I had to have a conversation with Alicia about it, where she was saying, What the hell? and I was saying, I dont know. Next year theyll re-team with While Were Young director Noah Baumbach on his brilliant doc about Brian De Palma, distribute one of the best horror films since The Shining, and release the first of the films theyve financed themselves. Fenkel: And the Spring Breakers trailer dropped the first day of Sundance, and MTVs servers fucked up, because we gave them the exclusive, and they stopped serving the video. 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. That kind of audience. I asked him what he wants his company to be. I Just Raised The Oscar At Them. Earlier this year I was drinking in a hotel bar with the head of another distribution company at a film festival. Fenkel: You dont know how to control yourself. Dede Gardner (producer, Plan B, Moonlight): When we and Barry said it was absolutely critical that we shoot in Miami, they said, Of course it is. And you know, many, many others wouldve said, Well, you can get the rebate if you go to Atlanta. But anyone whos read it knows that Liberty Square and that particular light and that particular culture was a character. He also produced . Well handle it! And if it works, its them; if it doesnt work, its all your fault anyway. Producer: Safety Not Guaranteed. Fenkel: We may have had to fire a fake intern for that. It was such an out-of-body experience. Four short years later, the companys first original production, Barry Jenkinss Moonlight, won the Academy Award for Best Picture. It was our first Sundance all together. Also Read: Sundance, SXSW Comedy 'Never Goin' Back' Sells to A24, John has been a trusted partner who helped conceive A24 and for that we will always be grateful, the studio said in a statement. Hodges: I started my career at USA Films, which became Focus Features. The story behind the studio that brought you Moonlight and It Comes At Night, as told by Barry Jenkins, Sofia Coppola, James Franco, Robert Pattinson, and the founders of A24 themselves. And, you know, partly as a filmmaker, youre like, My God! I open the curtains when Im in L.A., and everywhere I see films on billboards. Zoe Beyer (marketing, A24): Spring Breakers had a whole Oscar campaign. Miramax, they were a huge deal, and also Fox Searchlight. Because they didnt expect the traffic. God bless em. If theaters are to remain something more than a repository for superhero movies, everybody might have to be. January, February, we didnt know we had The Lobster. Since then his contributions to growing the company have been invaluable and we cant wait to see what he does next., Added Hodges, I am incredibly proud of the company we created and of the amazing team at A24 that has been integral to its success. Its super inspiring. Ask for forgiveness. I think it just showed that we cared about these movies so much. Take the fate of John Macleans Slow West, one of the years best films, a neo-Western starring Michael Fassbender as a bounty hunter. So Im showing up to the airport with no luggage and a cardboard box with duct tape wrapped around it. But I think she saw this, and it hijacked her image and personality, and we didnt ask her. There are exceptions to this rule, such as Miramax, the company that upended indie cinema in the 90s, backing then unknown filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino. The fact theyre vampires might just be an excuse for them to wear sunglasses indoors. Fenkel: The world kind of shifted in its direction, where the film was for an audience, and then you realize, Whoa, the movie is needed by other people. [16] The company, with cooperation from Bank of America, J.P. Morgan & Co. and SunTrust Banks, also raised its line of credit from $50 million to $125 million a month later to build upon its operations. Subscribe to Deadline Breaking News Alerts and keep your inbox happy. But we got A Glimpse Inside the Mind. Franco: I remember the South by Southwest festival, the screeningit was like a rock concert. And I was ready to say: It was me! (Make a left out of the elevators, and then a right at the cafeteria workers.). Franco: I hope they dont get too big that they forget what got them started. Variety and the Flying V logos are trademarks of Variety Media, LLC. Everybody was talking a few years ago how cinema had died. In the fall of 2012, A24 arrived at the Toronto International Film Festival with a plan to acquire several movies. John Hodges is Head of Film for Jax Media, where he heads Jax's feature film development and production. [Sofia] was like, Oh, will you at least partner with Harvey? We were like, No!. Sacco: Frances Ha was the first heartbreak. IFC earned a raft of Oscar nominations when it decided to put its muscle behind Boyhood and transform it into a phenomenon, but dumping all of its eggs into one beautifully textured basket helped to underline the paucity of love that most indies receive from their distributors, who ferry them from festivals to home video with all the solemn purpose of Charon taking passengers across the river Styx. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Deploying for Major CAT Events, tornadoes . Katz: By the way, a thousand times out of a thousand, youre wrong. Fenkel: And they were like, You cant do that! we don't have a good idea of their yearly revenue either as the most recent stats were from 2012 estimating around $20 million, but that wasn't putting into account pure profit only the overall gross of all the films released that year. So long as A24 continues tooperate independently and make edgy films from newcomers and established veterans alike, Ill be a happy moviegoer. I kept calling the guy. (Joy, Annapurnas only 2015 title, arrives in theaters on Christmas Day.). Anything in between is dead in the water. Please! This monster slowly stalks you when you sleep with the wrong person, and the only way to pass it on is to bed another partner. Denis Villeneuve (director, Enemy): I never saw them as businessmen. The fact that we were able to sign any movies out of that office is absurd. 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Rowling More Grace and Listen to Her, Britain's $4 Billion Boss: ITV Chief Carolyn McCall Bets It All on Talent, 2023 Music Festivals: How to Buy Tickets to Coachella, Governors Ball, Lollapalooza and More. When Ex Machina director Alex Garland was asked what he liked about working with A24, he compared the major studios to ocean liners: To change direction it takes them two days to even start to make that turn. Im glad it all worked out. [26], In July 2021, A24 reportedly explored a possible buyout for between $2.5 billion to $3 billion. Jul 2021 - Present1 year 7 months. I mean, I have no idea what theyre doing, really. The companys best known movies include Ex Machina, Room, The Witch, Amy and Moonlight, which won the 2016 Academy Award for best picture, best adapted screenplay and best supporting actor for Mahershala Ali. IP & Literary Intern, Literary & IP Acquisitions at Amazon Studios, Assistant, Physical Production at Lionsgate, Executive Assistant/Production Office Coordinator for iONE Digital (NY), Manager, Scripted Film and Television, Cond Nast Entertainment. What are you working on? I woke up one morning to an e-mail from Daniel that was sent at three in the morning: Can you go to Pittsburgh? I come into the office, and there are interns running around like in some crazy factory. In September 2013, A24 struck a partnership valued up to $40 millionwith satellite television provider DirecTV. They came on strong in the late 90s, really. 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. I found it so deep in Google Image searches. And then there was another one where hes deep-throating the gun, and we replaced it with a gold statue. Fenkel: One thing we notice is now people are saying, Oh, good job. Like I had glandular problems. 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 material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Fenkel: I just cannot stop. A24 took Ex Machina to the 2015 South by Southwest festival and built a Tinder chatbot with the face of Alicia Vikander to help promote the film. Steven Spielberg publicly predicted the implosion of the film industry, which is sort of like God telling you to brace for rain. John. We had a good history. You know what? Trench coat was enough. I didnt think it was terrible. If after seeing it you have a renewed taste for fright, here are nine other recent horror gems that use their modest scale to their advantage. 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. But I feel that the fact that it was their first filmthere was a lot of idealism around the process. So, how much is Johnny Hodges . And so anytime you speak with someone whos not a pure accountant, is not a pencil pusher? And Im not saying theyre magicians. Sacco: Gun bongs. [10] The company's first theatrical release was Roman Coppola's A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, which had a limited release. Harvey Weinstein (via email): A24 is a great company. SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE DAILY NEWSLETTER, FIRST TAKE, Sundance, SXSW Comedy 'Never Goin' Back' Sells to A24. Sacco: To engrave the Spring Breakers logo onto the glass-gun bong. I think Spring Breakers really put them on the map, as far as I could tell. Heavey: He didnt really use a computer. The initial agreement covered 12 films, the first of which was Denis Villeneuves jaundiced doppelgnger freakout, Enemy, starring Jake Gyllenhaal. I say, Dont go there. Because what happened was, someone ran out with a red envelope. I thought it would get a distributorI thought it was good enough for that. Katz: It was early in the relationship. A24s biggest success, Lady Bird, grossed $49 million domestically, so can that ceiling support the duos ambitions, or will a larger distributor make them an offer they cant refuse? An Industry Arts Company. The exceptionand basically the only part of A24 that has any public profile at allis the companys social media presence. In the last few years, there have been a spate ofindie horror films that have broken into the mainstream. And even this public face represents the companys nonhierarchical structure: Thats only funny, Beyer once observed, because youre not quite sure whos saying it. It wasnt just that, for a new distribution company, it seemed to have a level of taste and an instinct for cool that is atypical in Hollywood. See what happens.. John Hodges is leaving A24, the Oscar-winning indie studio that he co-founded. Logo by GrandArmy Photos via A24. Since then his contributions to growing the company have been invaluable and we cant wait to see what he does next., Added Hodges, I am incredibly proud of the company we created and of the amazing team at A24 that has been integral to its success. And I think theyre creating a kind of renaissance in filmmaking. Karyn Kusama is a rapidly rising female director, and for good reason. Hodges teamed with Daniel Katz and David Fenkel to launch the company, which is based in New York City. Hodges: The office literally looked like a pump-and-dump stock operation. And with the opening weekend, with the numbers that we did, it became very clear that, yes, this is a viable strategy, to keep this very small, gay, art-house hood-ass filmlike, yeah, were just gonna keep it in theaters. They rented some office space in Manhattan. And the guy asked me, Is there anything we might find suspicious in there? I said, Theres an art piece inside in the shape of a gun. And literally the entire security department was like, What is wrong with you? Long story short, it made it through. We wish Hodges the best of luck with his next endeavor, since the indie landscape has certainly benefited from his contributions. GQ Style. Saulnier expertly contains conflict, depth and gore within small confines. And in that moment I was like: Now its time to go do this. Not necessarily, like, to win Best Picture and ten Oscar nominations. Katz came from a film finance group, while Fenkel and Hodges both left positions at other independent film companies. Katz: People say, Oh, Barry, why didnt you bring us Moonlight?As if that was the most obvious Best Picture! Katz: Tuesday morning, I remember, we had a little whiskey for him. (Blindsided teens, many of whom had been intrigued at the thought of seeing former Disney star Selena Gomez in a more mature performance, assailed the Internet with complaints that they had paid to see the Worst Movie Ever Made.) I liked the fact that they had never made a doc. 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. We saw the red envelope. People want to see movies. Jenkins: I just would never allow myself to believe that something I made could win Best Picture. And Under the Skin, from Jonathan Glazer, is one of my favorite movies in the past 15 or 20 years, you know? [6] The name "A24" was inspired by the Italian A24 motorway Katz was driving on when he decided to found the company; coincidentally, the motorway is also renowned in Italian film history as the setting of many small Abruzzan towns and rural landscapes employed in the films of neorealist and surrealist masters. Hodges had been an integral part of the studio since its inception in 2012, along with co-founders David Fenkel and Daniel Katz. Only Lovers Left Alive drips with style, wisdom and ironic humor as Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton play hip, immortal layabouts. Fenkel: Charlie Sheen was in this interesting place where maybe he was on the verge of a comeback, and Im saying that with a straight face. 2023 Variety Media, LLC. No!. Rather than focusing on acquisitions, as was its early strategy, A24 is now producing its own movies, as well as its own podcast. Its not remarkable that A24 had set such a goalits remarkable that the company is accomplishing it. Some dissatisfied customers later accused the marketing campaign of misrepresenting the movie as a fun adolescent romp. Starting off moderately in 2013 with A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, the company's growth started with the release of Spring Breakers later that year. And she said it sucked. Beyer: There were like a few ads that we made. John Hodges is a producer and the founder of A24 alongside David Katz and David Fenkel. Aizenberg: Ex Machina winning for visual effects was the most shocking thing. These films speak for themselves. It was, like, every time another person walked out, I was like, Oh, there goes another one!, Sacco: All my friends and family, they kept asking about this new company. People had thought that entire part of the industry had just died. And, like, within two blocks, I have to stop. How do we get Spring Breakers? And then Noah got Spring Breakers. A24's television division has produced The Carmichael Show, At Home with Amy Sedaris, Ramy, Euphoria and Mr. Corman. If anything, it was the bastard stepchild at that point. Variety is a part of Penske Media Corporation. We just had to catch up to that idea. [20], On February 20, 2018, A24 launched a podcast titled The A24 Podcast. Surely theyve learned by now that theres a ceiling for arthouse films these days. Katz: Harvey Weinstein called the agent and said, How could you give a Sofia Coppola movie to this new? I can only imagine. Itd be very unlikely for that to happen. On the most literal level, an A24 film is budgeted from anywhere between $1 million (Obvious Child) and $20 million (A Most Violent Year). Eggers: People always want to do bigger and better the next time, you know? His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. The latest is Hereditary, the debut film of Ari Aster that premiered at Sundance and is quickly earning a reputation as one of the scariest movies ever. Katz: We have a better relationship with him now. And I felt with these guys it was a dialogue. They wanted, like, the Disney, massive one. Katz: Tusk, we were like, oh, Kevin Smith! The photo has been replaced. All Rights Reserved. 2023 Deadline Hollywood, LLC. Kapadia: Theyve won Best Picture. I actually tied with Jared [Leto], who obviously won the Oscar that year, for L.A. Film Critics. Katz: Maybe even greater. @ After a brief flurry of acquisitions gossip, and Monday's announcement that A24 co-founder John Hodges will exit the company, A24 and/or Apple "insiders" let it be known that Apple wasn't. A mile and a half. So we ran there. Annapurna Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection, Moonlights Mahershala Ali Picks His Own Oscar Winners. Jenkins: What theyre doing is so fluid and free-form that two years from now, it could be quite different than it was two years ago. The deal, intended to grant A24 the capital it needed to grow and DirecTV some much-needed cultural cachet, stipulated that the two companies would jointly acquire new titles, and that those titles would be eligible to premiere on DirecTVs on-demand platform 30 days prior to a theatrical release. Memphis, Tennessee, United States. Signed on as producer beginning with the third season. It was also that A24 was releasing these films not with a sigh and a shrug, but with panache, style, and humor: bright neon colors, guerrilla marketing tactics, and in the case of James Francos Britney Spears-loving gangster character from Spring Breakers, an actual Oscar campaign. Or a screenwriter. It Follows takes the horror trope of getting punished for having sex to a new level. You could tell that they wanted to be great. Aizenberg: We had a couple movies in there that we tried to force into making, like, event-y theatrical, and they werent. Beyer: I think the operating principle was, Dont ask for permission. We wanted to deliver in a meaningful way. We sit in. Aizenberg: I think we knew we had something at South By. This fall A24 enters the awards race in a serious way for the first time, with two movies: the accessible David Foster Wallace biopic The End of the Tour, and the Brie Larsonstarring literary adaptation Room, which recently won the coveted Peoples Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. The company offered no additional details other than to say his vacancy would not lead to any additional changes in management. Fenkel: So hes booking, what, fifteen hundred screens? And they did. As of April 2022[update], twenty-seven episodes had been released. Thats completely nuts. Distribution: Theatrical, TV, DVD-video, VOD, USA. A24 was founded on August 20, 2012, by film veterans Daniel Katz, David Fenkel, and John Hodges. If the cost of helping great movies find their theatrical audiences and lure them into theaters is to release other great movies that audiences have to find for themselves, thats probably a price most of us are willing to pay. It is currently unknown if this slate of films will have a theatrical release or be exclusive to Apple's Apple TV+ streaming service. Ali Herting (acquisitions and development, A24): We were never gonna get Place Beyond the Pines. But if it is, a monastic degree of focus will be required to recognize which A24 titles might fare better on VOD.