2023 Variety Media, LLC. Sacco: We probably saw 20 versions. John Hodges is leaving A24, the Oscar-winning indie studio that he co-founded. Katz: Maybe even greater. As one of the founding members of the New York-based company, Hodges played a key role in putting A24 on the map, culminating with last years best picture winner, Moonlight, just five years after it was launched. John Hodges is a producer and the founder of A24 alongside David Katz and David Fenkel. Fenkel: That kind of hit. We had to get a second one. Kleiner: They had the movie, I want to say, 22, 23 weeks in theatrical release? But I put no limitations on what theyre capable of. [14], In May 2015, A24 announced that it would start a television division and began producing the USA Network series Playing House, as well as working to develop a television series that would later become Comrade Detective, produced by Channing Tatum. Said Korine: They saw that marketing was a creative act that could be entertaining in and of itself. Quite often you finish a film, he told me, youve had no contact with the distributor, you hand it to them, you get a quick look at the poster. [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. GQ may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. 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. This is before Wolf of Wall Street came out, but Margot Robbie, I didnt know her, but she was working with somebody that knew my costumer or something, and got in touch with me and was like, Can you print me a photo of the tattoos in detail, so that I can get this costume perfectly? Because she was fucking Alien that year. But we liked them. Heavey: People were, like, crying. 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. . A mother undergoes reconstructive facial surgery, but her two twin boys dont recognize the woman beneath her bandages. If its gonna be released the same way by another company, we usually dont go after it. Katz: Yeah! 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. Thats very unusual. Many of the countrys most vital filmmakers, unwilling to accept that their next movie would have to be either shot on an iPhone or connected to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, have begun to abandon ship. Eggers: In the very beginning, when we went to Sundance initially, I didnt think that this was going to have such a large audience. Korine: I could tell that they were on some new shit, you know? Where its like: Im in. I remember the thing that got him was like, Listen. But if it is, a monastic degree of focus will be required to recognize which A24 titles might fare better on VOD. I actually tied with Jared [Leto], who obviously won the Oscar that year, for L.A. Film Critics. John Hodges is leaving A24, the Oscar-winning indie studio that he co-founded. Hodges: The office literally looked like a pump-and-dump stock operation. Jenkins: We shot for five weeks, and they came down during the first week. His relationship with talent and creators is exceptional and we look forward to having him make Jax his new home.. Really? Since then, A24's success has been immeasurable, especially for an independent Production company founded the same year The Avengers came out. Send us a tip using our annonymous form. So when I saw that, I was like, Okay, those guys, they know what they are doing.. [15], In January 2016, Sasha Lloyd joined the company to handle all film, television distribution and business development in the international marketplace. 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. We werent doing anything like that. We spoke with the companys friends, collaborators, and employees to make sense of how A24 became the most interesting, creative, and reliable film company of the 21st century. Leave it to Jim Jarmusch to make the coolest vampire movie ever. Igoe: Even with Ex Machina at the time, we were getting bigger, but we still had that kind of start-up mentality that I dont know wed be able to get away with now. Theyre making people want to go to the cinema again to see this kind of stuff, rather than staying at home. He later left A24 on March 2018 to focus on future opportunities. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. And it was on the A24 [motorway]. And the interns are running around trying to find a glassblower. I kept calling the guy. Beyer: It was all about this tension between, like, trying to legitimize ourselves as a real company that can handle working with, like, big. And integral and critical for the film to rise on its own feet. Correction, Sept. 30, 2015:This article originally contained a photo of John Hodges, a film producer, rather than John Hodges, co-founder of A24. His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. So everything had to be explained to me, and by the time it was explained, it was over. And then we drank a huge amount of red wine. And that was our communication for booking theaters. Its DirecTV/A24 release grossed $229,094 and never played on more than 54 screens. Ask for forgiveness. I think it just showed that we cared about these movies so much. Miramax, they were a huge deal, and also Fox Searchlight. But then when we started to screen the film at Sundance and saw the audience reactions, it was clear that there was a much larger audience for this movie than any of us thought. Love that movie. When it wasnt us. Variety is a part of Penske Media Corporation. He also produced . A24 co-founder John Hodges is exiting the indie company to "focus on future opportunities," he and the company jointly announced on Monday. With Hodges leaving, the company behind the Oscar-winning best pictureMoonlight made it clear that no additional changes in management will be made. Since then his contributions to growing the company have been invaluable and we cant wait to see what he does next, said A24 in a statement. GQ Style. Katz: Theres all these really, really smart, capable, ambitious people that love movies. Johansson plays something between an android and alien symbiote who seduces men in order to envelop them in a dark, infinite pool of nothingness. And theyre aiming at them. Its true that most audiences may not care about who it is thats releasing the movies they see, but an A24 film demands even casual viewers to consider the source. Lets go wide! Fenkel: It actually went very well, for what the movie was. That kind of audience. Our site's data suggests A24's net worth to be about $1.89 million. It specializes in film distribution, and film and television production. Asif Kapadia (director, Amy): I suppose most filmmakers have had bad experiences in the past where you do all the hard work, and then these guys in slick suits come along and theyre like, We know what were doing now! They had heart to them. And when youre a loser, you think for a split second, Maybe they got it wrong. The photo has been . When your audience does the work for you. Key grip. 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. Thats an achievable budget number for me. You know what I mean? Oh my god, its new! Which is vanishingly rare in the film industry. Hodges had been an integral part of the studio since its inception in 2012, along with co-founders David Fenkel and Daniel Katz. 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. 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Brie Larson (actress, Room, The Spectacular Now): A24 has the unique ability to find and champion authentic narratives that cut to the core in a raw and honest way. Logo by GrandArmy Photos via A24. Lets do Kevin Smith horror! I was proud of the film but I thought it was weird and boring. There was this weird time. And they did. I felt like there was a huge opportunity to create something where the talented people could be talented. The exceptionand basically the only part of A24 that has any public profile at allis the companys social media presence. But youre like, Why didnt other people see that? I have no idea. They were thinking in a different way, trying something newer and maybe more radical with their approach. Steven Spielberg publicly predicted the implosion of the film industry, which is sort of like God telling you to brace for rain. From It Follows to The Babadook, these horror gems didnt have blockbuster budgets. Description. It made me crack up. 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She looked great. 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. Aizenberg: I think we knew we had something at South By. I think he was in Hawaii on his honeymoon or something while it was all going down, so I felt terrible. Fenkel: One thing we notice is now people are saying, Oh, good job. That was a thing. Not like we should have paid more. Heavey: He didnt really use a computer. You dont watch something like Spring Breakers or Under the Skin without thinking: Where the hell did that come from? And even this public face represents the companys nonhierarchical structure: Thats only funny, Beyer once observed, because youre not quite sure whos saying it. But I feel that the fact that it was their first filmthere was a lot of idealism around the process. They rented some office space in Manhattan. The fact theyre vampires might just be an excuse for them to wear sunglasses indoors. Wanna follow A24 (company)'s net worth? John Hodges (co-founder and co-head of TV, A24): It was one of those conversations where it was always like, How would we do it differently? And it was usually fueled by beer and things scribbled down on napkins and a lot of bravado. Thats completely nuts. Fenkel: In LA, every meeting is about the hot air. Kapadia: There were other films that had a lot more money in their campaign and were everywhere. Focus and Fox Searchlight had become kind of isolated in what they did. 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]. 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. It was like Broadcast News. Im thrilled to be joining the team at Jax, Hodges said. Fenkel: And we did this, like, illegal Tinder stuff. And then you meet Barry and hear Barry talk, and its like, Of course! [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. For Ponsoldts latest, A24s marketing efforts followed the films example of approaching a highbrow topic with a low bar for entry, partnering with Medium.com for a project called Just Words, for which writers, artists, and other intellectual types collectively celebrated the life and work of David Foster Wallace. [21][22] Episodes are based around a discussion between two members of the film industry. And they were like the third guy at the company. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. 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. 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. A24 FILMS. Wed be like, Heavey, just make sure hes alive and you can get him to communicate.. Theyre just on it. For the company's filmography, see, 20142017: Television and later productions, 2018present: Management changes, partnerships. So I suppose the question now surrounding A24 is what Fenkel and Katz plan to make of it. Fenkel: I was at the Union Square theater, and they couldnt have had enough theaters. Katz: I dont think we had The Bling Ring yet. Other indie labels, like Megan Ellisons Annapurna Pictures (which co-produced Spring Breakers), tend to go in the other direction, releasing a minuscule handful of movies into the currents of Oscar season in the hopes that the waters will carry them toward a crowd. On the most literal level, an A24 film is budgeted from anywhere between $1 million (Obvious Child) and $20 million (A Most Violent Year). Jon Hodges CEO at Evergreen North America Industrial Services League City, Texas, United States 2K followers 500+ connections Join to connect Evergreen industrial services and GEM mobile. Katz, Fenkel and Hodges prior to A24 worked in film and production, before leaving to eventually co-found the company, Mr Katz had worked in film financing at Guggenheim Partners, and . All three had grown up admiring the rich world of 90s independent cinema, and they noticed a void where those movies had once been. Its funny. Theres music labels I can think of as well. Katz: I always had dreams of [starting a company]. Thats someone else. [11][12], In September 2013, A24 entered a $40 million deal with DirecTV Cinema, where DirecTV Cinema would offer day-and-date releases 30 days prior to a theatrical release by A24; Enemy was the first film to be distributed under the deal.
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