[21][22] Episodes are based around a discussion between two members of the film industry. Slate is published by The Slate Group, a Graham Holdings Company. With how bad it tested. January, February, we didnt know we had The Lobster. Katz formerly led the film finance group at Guggenheim Partners, Fenkel was the president, co-founder and partner at Oscilloscope, and Hodges served as Head of Production and Development at Big Beach. With Hodges leaving, the. 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. Wed be like, Heavey, just make sure hes alive and you can get him to communicate.. I dont even look at him. 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. A24, which was founded in 2012, said that no additional changes in management will be made. All rights reserved. But its present success and continued survival are dependent on a massive deal that seems to directly contradict everything thats made the company so special. 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. Take the fate of John Macleans Slow West, one of the years best films, a neo-Western starring Michael Fassbender as a bounty hunter. Their whole point was, We dont know this world. You were in the A24 offices. But in general distribution is like plumbing: unseen, unnoticed, and notable only when it malfunctions. Miramax, they were a huge deal, and also Fox Searchlight. And so anytime you speak with someone whos not a pure accountant, is not a pencil pusher? Correction, Sept. 30, 2015: This article originally contained a photo of John Hodges, a film producer, rather than John Hodges, co-founder of A24. Kapadia: Theyve won Best Picture. 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. That was 2013. They had heart to them.Harmony Korine, Sacco: I wouldnt say I got it. And then there was another one where hes deep-throating the gun, and we replaced it with a gold statue. Theyre making people want to go to the cinema again to see this kind of stuff, rather than staying at home. 10001 NEW YORK, USA. All the actors had taken the risk. Or a director. 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. Gif excerpt from the film Slow West via A24 Films. Fenkel: If you look at our films, we bought The Lobster in February and released it in May. Deploying for Major CAT Events, tornadoes . They didnt have a ton of movies, you know? There has been speculation for the past six months that the company is for sale. [29][30], "A24 Films" redirects here. A24 is an American independent entertainment company that specializes in film and television production, as well as film distribution. 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. They were not the company that they are today. David Fenkel (co-founder, A24): We find movies [for which] our perspective, our system, our people, can act to make it something special. I want to be A24, he said. Which is vanishingly rare in the film industry. I think when movie companies get started, people want to define you immediately. a24. Franco: All the distributors knew it was great. Jennifer Kents drama is a psychological heavyweight that examines how parents feed their demons to quell the pain. A24 may not yet inspire the same kind of blind devotion in theatergoers that the Criterion Collection does in home video obsessives, but its the only indie distributor that feasibly could. 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. Theres aesthetic and political values to the people behind the company. She looked great. 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. GQ Style. He booked the theaters over the phone. Katz: In LAwhatever just transpired last month, you feel it in LA. We saw the red envelope. Three were winners. @ 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. Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted. I kept calling the guy. Daniel Radcliffe (actor, Swiss Army Man): Ive had experiences on films in the past where they get bought by somebody who sees something in it that they like, which is nice, but it also happens to be notand is sometimes antithetical towhat the people who made the film wanted it to be. You prepare like for your dissertation at Harvard. Sacco: Its sobering and motivating in a different way. It would be fascinating for just the unnerving dread of an awkward gathering of friends, but Kusama then provides the film a killer twist. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. 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. Aizenberg: Ex Machina winning for visual effects was the most shocking thing. Katz: Tuesday morning, I remember, we had a little whiskey for him. Selena and Ashley had no issue with this. Fenkel: We may have had to fire a fake intern for that. 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. 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. Radcliffe (actor, Swiss Army Man): I could see them saying, like: Weve got a reputation now, and have money now. A lot of people in that position would then go, Okay, lets become quite conservative in our choices. And whats lovely is they are choosing to still channel that stuff back into supporting weird, different, ambitious ventures. (He won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award for Best Supporting Actor). Alex Garland (director, Ex Machina): They make things work that according to standard procedures really shouldnt work. The fact that we were able to sign any movies out of that office is absurd. Set in 1630s New England, a family is banished from their village and starts to unravel when their baby vanishes. 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. 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. 2023 Deadline Hollywood, LLC. Worst case, youll get the trench-coat crowd. You know what the trench-coat crowd is? A mile and a half. So we ran there. That broke the film out., For Room director Lenny Abrahamson, working with A24 on his films campaign has been a dramatic change. Focus and Fox Searchlight had become kind of isolated in what they did. Garland: Under the Skin is exactly the kind of movie that you would not see distributed by a major studio. junio 12, 2022. cottage for sale in timmins on . And it just kept getting better and better and better. I dont mean it that way. There are more glamorous things to be, in Hollywood, than an independent distribution company. IMDb, the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. We had to get a second one. First movies gonna be so exciting! And I remember everyone came back from that test screening. Stay plugged in to the industry with our free newsletter. March 3, 2018. The Rover found a mentally deficient Robert Pattinson singing Keri Hilsons Pretty Girl Rock in the deserts of post-apocalyptic Australia. Uncut Gems ($50 million). They had faith that people would continue to show up. 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. 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. But the back end was so crazy. In the last few years, there have been a spate ofindie horror films that have broken into the mainstream. 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. Asif Kapadia (director, Amy): I had never heard of A24. I just And it was like a snowy and rainy day, and there was a ton of traffic. Not heyday. In the fall of 2012, A24 arrived at the Toronto International Film Festival with a plan to acquire several 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. They became better known after picking up the U.S. rights to Ex Machina and Room, and worldwide rights to The Witch, growing substantially since then. You know what? A24 Films is a US theatrical distribution and production company founded by Daniel Katz, John Hodges and David Fenkel. Fenkel: And we had a booker at the time, this big old school guy, gentle giant, hes a sweet guy, but kind of a gangster, but levels of, like, cool gangster. Steven Soderbergh retired. Spike Lee turned to Kickstarter. More recently, it expanded from being an acquisitions-only distributor to producing home-grown fare as well as branching into TV. 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. Sacco: And people on planet Earth, you know, they go see movies that they need to want to see or hear about. Well handle it! And if it works, its them; if it doesnt work, its all your fault anyway. Gif excerpt from the film The End of the Tour via A24 Films. "I'm thrilled to be joining the team at Jax,". And I think theyre creating a kind of renaissance in filmmaking. Dave Franco & Alison Brie Take a Couples Quiz, Heres a First Look at Daniel Lees Burberry, Bubba Wallace and Daniel Suarez Are Shaping NASCAR's Future, Inside Daniel Lee's Burberry Debut, London Fashion Week's Biggest Show. And it was on the A24 [motorway]. Said Korine: They saw that marketing was a creative act that could be entertaining in and of itself. 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. But youre in a tuxedo and everyone around you is older and theyre quiet Jenkins: It sucks, man, because of how it happened, none of us thanked them! Since then, A24's success has been immeasurable, especially for an independent Production company founded the same year The Avengers came out. 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. No Comments Yet Be the first to comment on John Hodges! We tried to get the Union Square movie theaterwe didnt have a theatrical booking yet. Place Beyond the Pines, wed worked with the producers before. Aizenberg: Yeah. Thats not a go-wide movie. The Hollywood Reporter is a part of Penske Media Corporation. As one of the founding members of the New York-based company, Hodges played a key role. Take its efforts on Spring Breakers, for example. Suddenly, in order to be financially viable, a project has to cost less than $2 million or more than $200 million. It specializes in film distribution, and film and television production. Not like we should have paid more. 2023 Variety Media, LLC. 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. 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. you never leave your partner especially in a fire villas san angel rosarito a24 john hodges net worth. And I think that really helped the movie. Fenkel: But it was like, Youre not going to be 20 minutes late for Scott Rudin. So you ran. Harmony Korine (director, Spring Breakers): They have balls. In 2021, A24 won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Yuh-jung Youn in Minari, who became the first Korean actress to win an Oscar). It was me! I remember when all the commotion started, I look at David. God bless em. If theaters are to remain something more than a repository for superhero movies, everybody might have to be. And that question is the birth of fandom. Maybe we werent geniuses with Spring Breakers, but we were the ones who said, Lets put it in theaters, because we could build on that. People liked Spring Breakers. Of the 174 million impressions that the movie made in the weeks leading up to its debut, 49 percent were organic, meaning that you were just as likely to learn about a new Harmony Korine film from your weird aunts personal page as you were from a promoted update in your news feed. 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. [13] That same year, A24 entered a deal with Amazon Prime, where A24-distributed films would be available on Amazon Instant Video after becoming available on DVD and Blu-ray. Its DirecTV/A24 release grossed $229,094 and never played on more than 54 screens. And although it describes itself as Midnight Madness, the film didnt start until close to one oclock in the morning. We took a risk on the movie, and it fucking paid off, so why should we cut down our back end? You get a movie with them and it represents something. Maybe even that guy with a two-way radio who keeps you from walking through a movie set. 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. Aizenberg: That Oscar-nomination morning, I remember walking into the office that day, and I was like, Please, dear God, just let Amy and Brie get nominated. 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. Producer: Safety Not Guaranteed. I agree with TheWrap's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and provide my consent to receive marketing communications from them. As of April 2022[update], twenty-seven episodes had been released. Sacco: I used to think seeing people faint was what happened in movies. And I think thats the main thing, Id say. 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. 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.. Beyer: I remember when we had Room, like, six months after Ex Machina or something, Fenkel was like, Whats the Tinder for Room? And I was like, No, no! That kind of audience. In this newly created role, Hodges will be tasked with overseeing and growing all of Jax Medias film projects. Were always cognizant of trying to sell the film by not selling it, said marketing exec Jesse Patrone-Werdiger, speaking to A24s rare faculty for promoting around the product its trying to push, shifting the tectonic plates of culture in the hopes of giving rise to a mountain. 2023 THE TRACKING BOARD. (Joy, Annapurnas only 2015 title, arrives in theaters on Christmas Day.). Katz, Fenkel and Hodges all got together in 2012 and decided to make their late night yammerings a reality. Patrick Stewart (actor, Green Room): [The premiere of Green Room] was at the Toronto Film Festivals Midnight Madness. 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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. No way., Katz: It was just like, Wait. Login to view all information @ Katz: By the way, a thousand times out of a thousand, youre wrong. Some dissatisfied customers later accused the marketing campaign of misrepresenting the movie as a fun adolescent romp. Katz, Fenkel and Hodges prior to A24 worked in film and production, before leaving to eventually co-found the company, So long as A24 continues tooperate independently and make edgy films from newcomers and established veterans alike, Ill be a happy moviegoer. And then, in 08, the bubble burst, and the economic downturn probably had a little bit of impact. Discover Johnny Hodges's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. When your audience does the work for you. But I put no limitations on what theyre capable of. John Hodges is leaving A24, the Oscar-winning indie studio that he co-founded. He later left A24 on March 2018 to focus on future opportunities. And so anytime you speak with someone whos not a pure accountant, is not a pencil pusher? 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. I am incredibly proud of the company we created and of the amazing team at A24 that has been integral to its success. Mahershala Ali (actor, Moonlight): I definitely have a lot more opportunity right now than Ive ever had before. 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. The tech titan is reportedly in the midst of dropping $1 billion on original content, but has yet to make a major film market move. Hodges had been an integral part of the studio since its inception in 2012, along with co-founders David Fenkel and Daniel Katz. Notable guests on the show have included Bo Burnham, Paul Schrader, Sofia Coppola, Alia Shawkat and Martin Scorsese. Its not remarkable that A24 had set such a goalits remarkable that the company is accomplishing it. Variety is a part of Penske Media Corporation. A24s television division released The Carmichael Show.. Essie Davis is insanely good as a single mother on the brink of a mental breakdown as she attempts to care for her troubled young son. Which, if you look two years back, theres just no way in hell anybody would have thought that A24 would finance a film like Moonlight and release it in the way they did, to the tune of a Best Picture and $55 million in international box office. Filmmakersoften the toughest audiences for their own films marketing campaignsrecognize the companys real excitement for their films. Harvey Weinstein (via email): A24 is a great company. An A24 project is far more likely to be female-driven than a film released by another company, and it is typically directed by a major filmmaker (Sally Potter, Sofia Coppola, Noah Baumbach) or a filmmaker on the cusp of becoming one (J.C. Chandor, James Ponsoldt). You walk through that office, and there arent a lot of people that look like theyre from Liberty City, Miami. [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. I love Moonlight, said as much before it won the Oscar, and Ill say it again now - I showed it to my daughters early and they loved it. 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. Halfway through the campaign, I think it went the other way. [8] In October 2012, Nicolette Aizenberg joined as head of publicity from 42West where she was senior publicity executive. 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 . And then we opened. Under the Skin reintroduced Scarlett Johansson as a killer alien from outer space (and, more jarringly, a shockingly brave improv performer). Katz: There was still, I think, the element ofthey thought we got lucky. 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. People want to see movies. John Heavey (distribution, A24): Especially the first two years, we fell in love with every movie. The company said he will exit to focus on "future opportunities," but did not clarify beyond that statement.. Johns experience and taste is evident in the films he has developed and produced over the years. Fifty-six-year-old guy. So whos to say that, you know, A24 wont become Warner Brothers five years from now? But A24 has the money to acquire a steady slate of releases, the model to support them, and the chutzpah to make nearly each one into a mini-phenomenon. [19], In January 2017, the company acquired the United States and Chinese distribution rights for their first foreign language film, Menashe. They were thinking in a different way, trying something newer and maybe more radical with their approach. Like Get Out, or Baby Driver. Im dying. In 2012, Fenkel, Hodges, and Katz left their jobsat Oscilloscope, Big Beach, and Guggenheim Partners, respectivelyto start A24. 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.. 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. John Hodges is leaving A24, the Oscar-winning indie studio that he co-founded. By subscribing, I agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. That was just acting! It was not like being in a cinema. Nathan (Oscar Isaac) and Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno). And I was just acting! Scott didnt say anything. 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.