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. 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. We get credit for it even when we have nothing to do with it. So what is an A24 film? But in general distribution is like plumbing: unseen, unnoticed, and notable only when it malfunctions. Fenkel: You dont know how to control yourself. They rented some office space in Manhattan. I won, I think, L.A. Film Critics and maybe one other. Katz, Fenkel and Hodges prior to A24 worked in film and production, before leaving to eventually co-found the company, Nicolette Aizenberg (distribution executive, A24): It is very cyclical. Buying and burying not-great movies isnt necessarily a problem if it grows the business without harming the brand. Fenkel: And we did this, like, illegal Tinder stuff. Sacco: We were on our way to the bathroom. Katz: I always had dreams of [starting a company]. A24 was founded on August 20, 2012, by film veterans Daniel Katz, David Fenkel, and John Hodges. Fenkel: Well, of course Selena Gomez in a bikini worked. Jennifer Kents drama is a psychological heavyweight that examines how parents feed their demons to quell the pain. The question with any company that lavishes attention and resources upon a modest amount of product is, of course, where does the money come from? In recent years, the recession and the concurrent rise of VOD streaming services have already torpedoed the midbudget movie. And yeah, I just think that it takesit doesnt happen that often that a new studio starts. There was nothing bad-spirited about it. 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. Discover Johnny Hodges's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. Surely theyve learned by now that theres a ceiling for arthouse films these days. Variety and the Flying V logos are trademarks of Variety Media, LLC. A24, originally a small independent movie distributor, has quickly transformed into one of the most respected and successful names in cinema production. Like, standing ovation, fucking applause in the middle of the movie. Fenkel: [Katz] is a better runner than I am. Katz: I was very concerned that people were gonna think Room kind of stepped into shit and got lucky with awards. 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! Wed be like, Heavey, just make sure hes alive and you can get him to communicate.. The initial agreement covered 12 films, the first of which was Denis Villeneuves jaundiced doppelgnger freakout, Enemy, starring Jake Gyllenhaal. All Rights Reserved. Fenkel: I was at the Union Square theater, and they couldnt have had enough theaters. 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. Eddie Guy. raised the Oscar at them. But then also do things that other companies arent doing. A mile and a half. So we ran there. So when I saw that, I was like, Okay, those guys, they know what they are doing.. A24 has an estimated net worth of about $1.89 million. Like, you believe in something, you fall in love with it, and then you work for three months on trying to make it work. John Hodges is leaving A24, the Oscar-winning indie studio that he co-founded. In 2016, A24 expanded into original production with Moonlight. It also put out some of its weirder and most singular movies to date: Trey Edward Shultss micro-budget family drama Krisha; Swiss Army Man, in which Daniel Radcliffe plays a corpse; and Yorgos Lanthimoss romantic tragedy, The Lobster. In February, Robert Eggerss The Witch, which A24 bought at Sundance for one million dollars, made $40 million and became the companys highest grossing film to date (Moonlight has since surpassed it). The company may be a lovely acquisition target for a buyer seeking an arthouse pipeline,but A24 is still building itself as a brand one that is synonymous with quality. And I think that really helped the movie. I felt like we were all on the same team. Other similarly sized outfits tend to flood the flooded marketplace with a steady barrage of quality independent and foreign fare in a way that can feel indiscriminate: Send the DCPs to Film Forum and let God sort em out. If the companys success continues apace, it might not be long before a profitable mid-budget movie no longer seems like a unicorn, and it might not be much longer until being an A24 film is the only hook a film needs. I Just Raised The Oscar At Them. Everybody wants to be A24. Hodges, along with Katz and Fenkel, largely shunned the spotlight, giving few interviews even as A24 made a name for itself by releasing edgier, filmmaker-driven fare from directors such as Lenny Abrahamson, Alex Garland, and the Safdie Brothers. 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. How do we get Spring Breakers? And then Noah got Spring Breakers. Because they didnt expect the traffic. [15], In January 2016, Sasha Lloyd joined the company to handle all film, television distribution and business development in the international marketplace. 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. On the TV side, Jaxs current projects include the recently released Russian Doll on Netflix, starring Natasha Lyonne; The Other Two, which was just picked up for a second season; and the final season of Broad City for Comedy Central. If its gonna be released the same way by another company, we usually dont go after it. Beth was also the first A24 movie since its inaugural release, the Charlie Sheen-starring A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, not to receive a fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes. I just trust, you know, Drag City or Merge or SST or Dischord. They entered into deals with DirecTV Cinema and Amazon Prime in late 2013, with some films distributed through them, and the name was changed to A24 in 2016.[3]. There was this weird time. Over the past six years I have been fortunate to work with a diverse group of talented storytellers across film and TV and look forward to continuing those collaborations in my future endeavors.. 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. Hollywood is run by accountants at this point. I think when we started [2016], it was another, like, what Id consider a building year. It wasnt going to get lost in the shuffle. I go, Huh., It Sucks, Man. Usually you talk to somebody and they tell you all the reasons they shouldnt make something, and why its so difficult. It is based in New York City. She looked great. You know, theyre big-time. By subscribing, I agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. I was like, I think I need to find another job., Aizenberg: They were basically like, Dont release this movie.. A24 co-founder John Hodges is exiting the indie companyto focus on future opportunities, he and the company jointly announced on Monday. Genre hounds stoked by the Sundance hype would surely seek it out, but Eggers extraordinary debutabout a family of early American pilgrims who get banished to the wrong forestwould never be given the opportunity to meaningfully connect with its audience and worm its way into the culture. They didnt have a ton of movies, you know? Description. [19], In January 2017, the company acquired the United States and Chinese distribution rights for their first foreign language film, Menashe. There are more glamorous things to be, in Hollywood, than an independent distribution company. 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. It was me! Selena and Ashley had no issue with this. I actually tied with Jared [Leto], who obviously won the Oscar that year, for L.A. Film Critics. The End of the Tour freed Jason Segel from the succubus of network sitcoms by allowing him to inhabit the image of an iconic American writer. Steven Spielberg publicly predicted the implosion of the film industry, which is sort of like God telling you to brace for rain. You know more than me.. As of April 2022[update], twenty-seven episodes had been released. It specializes in film distribution, and film and television production. Earlier this year I was drinking in a hotel bar with the head of another distribution company at a film festival. Agent. No one in the office is older than 42, including co-founders John Hodges, David Fenkel, and Daniel Katz. 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. For a start, it was founded on the wrong coast - New York, not Los Angeles - by three relatively young arthouse film executives, Daniel Katz, David. A24 also released 2017s Lady Bird, an acclaimed coming-of-age story from Greta Gerwig, picking up a best picture nod. [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. As one of the founding members of the New York-based company, Hodges played a key role. 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. Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day. 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. 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. Hodges. Send us a tip using our annonymous form. And on some level, honestly, I was afraid to go out on my own and try to make it work. Logo by GrandArmy Photos via A24. In 2023, A24 became the most nominated single studio of that year's awards with 18 total nominations between 6 of its films (Everything Everywhere All at Once (11 nominations, the most nominated film of that year's awards, including Best Picture), The Whale (3 nominations), Aftersun, Causeway, Close, and Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (each with 1 nomination)).[5]. But we liked them. When the film comes out in early 2016, it will arrive exclusively in theaters, and its trial by fire will be exclusively in theaters. Beyer: And respect them and treat them the way they would by any other company. The company has laid the groundwork to evolve from just another upstart distribution label into a multiheaded ministudio capable of developing its own contentand so far theyve done it by releasing movies that tend to earn more cultural cachet than they do money. You lost. Film-distribution companies tend to be important but invisible: They buy finished films, cut trailers, make posters, and put movies into movie theatersor, more often these days, dump them onto VOD, never to be heard from again. Fenkel: We test-screened [Spring Breakers] in downtown Manhattan. Its coveted because six of the past seven winners were nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, and the harrowing, emotional Room looks poised to follow in their footsteps after it opens in October. The indies can be liquid and fluid. A24 may be growing fast, but no one has displayed greater agility in navigating the waters of a business that constantly seems to be changing course. Eggers: In the very beginning, when we went to Sundance initially, I didnt think that this was going to have such a large audience. And then, in 08, the bubble burst, and the economic downturn probably had a little bit of impact. And weve been so consistent about thanking them. Korine: I could tell that they were on some new shit, you know? Karyn Kusama is a rapidly rising female director, and for good reason. Aizenberg: Ex Machina winning for visual effects was the most shocking thing. Hodges teamed with Daniel Katz and David Fenkel to launch the company, which is based in New York City. John Hodges is Head of Film for Jax Media, where he heads Jax's feature film development and production. 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. Katz: Maybe even greater. 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. PARK CITY, Utah At the Sundance Film Festival here in January, executives at A24, the upstart movie and television studio, stood in the back of a makeshift theater looking as if . I Was Like, Fuck Yeah!Barry Jenkins. Over the past six years I have been fortunate to work with a diverse group of talented storytellers across film and TV and look forward to continuing those collaborations in my future endeavors, added Hodges. Katz, Fenkel and Hodges all got together in 2012 and decided to make their late night yammerings a reality. Animated photo illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker. Beyer: I think the operating principle was, Dont ask for permission. [23], On March 26, 2018, co-founder John Hodges announced that he was exiting the company. And then there was another one where hes deep-throating the gun, and we replaced it with a gold statue. TV production powerhouse Jax Media is expanding into film and tapped John Hodges, one of the founding partners of A24, as its new head of film. January, February, we didnt know we had The Lobster. 2023 The Hollywood Reporter, LLC. In 2013, A24 released their first five films: Sally Potters Ginger & Rosa, Harmony Korines Spring Breakers, Sofia Coppolas The Bling Ring, James Ponsoldts The Spectacular Now, and Roman Coppolas A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, starring Charlie Sheen. . I want to be A24, he said. I think that was Nicolette, actually: Consider This Shit.. And then we opened. Thats very unusual. Daniel Katz, David Fenkel and John Hodges have unveiled New York-based A24 as a distribution, financing and production company with plans to release eight to 10 titles annually. It would cost too much to buy Mississippi Grinda fighting chance in theaters, so the film is making its way into the world through 20 million smaller screens rather than a few dozen large ones, and more viewers will have a chance to appreciate it as the sublime hangout movie that it is.
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