I don’t make a secret of being a hardcore A24 fan – in fact, I am so annoying about it that for my birthday this year, I was gifted a gorgeous hardcover screenplay book for one of my favourite A24 movies, Hereditary. I’ve written about A24 films many times, including 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Talk To Me, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Everything Everywhere All at Once, and almost definitely Hereditary at some point. The studio is iconic for producing excellent, out-of-the-box films like The Witch, Uncut Gems, and Midsommar, among so many others, and regularly propels smaller filmmakers to stardom and commercial success. I’ve written about how A24 had a huge hand in the resurgence of art-h🗹orror in the mꦕainstream. The studio ✱is extremely influential in defining cultural taste at this moment in time and has brand recognition for tastemaking and showcasing auteur talent.
This is why I was dismayed to hear that last week, that A24 acquisition executive Noah Sacco has been making rounds in search of ‘action and big IP projects’, and that the studio is ‘deemphasising the traditional character/auteur-driven dramas’. A distribution executive told them, “Everyone in the independent film space is aware that A24 nee꧟ds to pivot to more commercial films alongside its arthou🌜se slate”. It’s already making a Friday the 13th series and is apparently right now.
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It makes sense. Arthouse movies can be very profitable – just look at Talk To Me, which grossed $88.6 million on a $4.5 million budget – but they’re not blockbusters. A24 has lost money on films like The Green Knight, Beau Is Afraid, and Waves, which isn’t easy for a studio mostly focusing on making mid-budget dramas with a much nicher audience than, say, Marvel movies, whichಞ make an unimaginable amount of money, netting billions of dollars in revenue. As TheWrap’s agent source says, “The auteur business is a lousy, high-risk business that does not attract potential buyers”. A24 is making art, cinematic gold treasured by fans globally that shapes cultural discourse, but it is not making enough money.
Right now, IP and action movies aren’t surefire ways to make money. They’re usually more profitable than arthouse projects, though, and with A24’s reputatiꦯon for deeply complex, well-written movies, there’s a chance its bid to become more profitable will succeed if it sticks to its tastemaking sensibilities. However, this pivot hasn’t worked well for companies like Miramax, Annapurna and The Weinstein Company, all ღof which went commercial after building a reputation for auteur-focused films. A24 has an extremely strong brand, but that might not be enough if they diverge from their identity too drastically.
But even if A24 succeeds, I fear this change bodes ill for the film industry. If A24, one of the most successful and renowned publishers of non-mainstream movies, can’t survive without turning to commercial films to 🦄pad the coffers, who can? And while it’s now saying that it intends to expand its offerings and not replace its arthouse slate with commercial films, how long will this be sustainable? It’s the publishing equivalent of modern auteurs doing ‘one for me, one for them’ – except how long do we have until the bottom line starts to take precedence over the quality of the films? How long until A24 begins to follow the money, instead of its reputation?
And how many movies, realistically, can A24 make in a year? As TheWrap’s agent source says, too many films crowd the marketplace. If it𝄹 wants to succeed, it’ll have to balance both a reasonable mix of arthouse and commercial films while maintaining the high quality its known for, and I don’t see that being easy to do. Perhaps if it manages to keep its up-and-coming auteurs within the studio and use the incoming money to help support their careers, that might help ensure quality blockbuster movies. But as it is, I have serious concerns that oꦓne of the most notable brands in film is taking a huge step in the wrong direction. I love A24 films. I don’t want it to lose what I love about it.