If there were any doubts that A24, the media company behind Everything Everywhere All at Once and other Oscar nominees, is the top independent film studio, they could be vanquished at Sunday’s Academy Awards.
The closely held distributor and producer heads to the awards with 18 nominations in total — the most of any single studio brand. They include 11 for Everything Everywhere, the favorite to win best picture, according to the website GoldDerby.com.
The breadth of its nominees is also impressive. Everything Everywhere is a genre-bending picture that’s part immigrant family drama, part sci-fi film and part martial-arts flick. A24 also released The Whale, a picture about a morbidly obese man that earned a best-actor nomination for Brendan Fraser, and Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, a family-friendly film that’s a contender for best animated feature.
Billionaire Todd Boehly is among the company’s backers. Last year, A24 raised $225 million from investors including Neuberger Berman and venture capitalist Ken Fox. That valued the business at about $2.5 billion. Fox thinks there’s more to come.
“They’re at this great inflection point,” he said in an interview. “The Oscars are emblematic of that.”
The company’s performance recalls the 1990s’ heyday of Miramax, the studio that won best-picture Oscars for films like The English Patient and Shakespeare in Love, notes David Herrin, who runs the Quorum, a movie industry research firm.
Like Miramax, the company is turning out one critical hit after another. Whether it can sustain that level of success remains to be seen. Moviemakers run hot and cold, just like the stars in front of the camera.
“We could be entering a peak A24 era,” Herrin said.
The company’s specialty, independent or art-house films, has never been particularly lucrative, even though such movies dominate the awards circuit. A24 has built a reputation for making high-quality, original films that resonate with critics, audiences and the talent community, if not broad swaths of the moviegoing public.
Everything Everywhere, produced for under $20 million, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, is by far A24’s most successful picture, taking in about $107 million at the worldwide box office so far. By comparison, Top Gun: Maverick, another best-picture nominee, has almost $1.5 billion in global ticket sales.
Italian Highway
The company was founded in 2012 by Daniel Katz, David Fenkel and John Hodges, all of whom worked in the film business before. The studio’s name was inspired by the Italian highway Katz was driving on when he decided to start the company. Hodges has since left.
Their first best picture win came with Moonlight, a 2016 drama about a young Black man coming to grips with his sexual identity. A24’s 2020 release Minari, about an immigrant family from South Korea, was nominated for six Academy Awards, including best picture, with Youn Yuh-jung winning best supporting actress.
Based in New York, the company keeps in touch with the theater scene there. The Whale was based on a play by Samuel D. Hunter. Causeway, about the unlikely friendship between a wounded soldier and an auto mechanic, was directed by Lila Neugebauer, who is best known for her theater work. Brian Tyree Henry is nominated for best supporting actor for his role in that film.
A24 has taken an independent filmmaker’s approach to financing and distributing films, often partnering with streaming services. Causeway, for example, was released on Apple TV after a limited theatrical run.
A TV production arm launched in 2015 has been successful, most notably with the edgy teen drama Euphoria on HBO. A24 bought New York’s off-Broadway Cherry Lane Theatre this month to use as a venue for up-and-coming projects.
“They just love interesting new filmmakers,” said Rich Klubeck, an agent with United Talent Agency. “It’s not just that they think it’s a good business. That’s what excites them, and it leads to good business.”
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