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. Sacco: Gun bongs. [15], In January 2016, Sasha Lloyd joined the company to handle all film, television distribution and business development in the international marketplace. Korine: I could tell that they were on some new shit, you know? Fenkel: We may have had to fire a fake intern for that. All Rights Reserved. Beyer: There were like a few ads that we made. Theres aesthetic and political values to the people behind the company. Losing a movieI wanted to jump off a bridge. Fenkel: More than 50 percent chance La La Land. Katz, Fenkel and Hodges prior to A24 worked in film and production, before leaving to eventually co-found the company, Hodges has been an integral part of the studio since its inception in 2012. Notable guests on the show have included Bo Burnham, Paul Schrader, Sofia Coppola, Alia Shawkat and Martin Scorsese. Katz: And we were all like, You know what? Scott didnt say anything. 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. By subscribing, I agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Villeneuve: If my memorys good, I was amongst their, not their first movies, but they were a young company at the time. The filmmakers were like, I made a good movie. Who are A24 - the company behind Uncut Gems, Euphoria and Hereditary? Daniel Katz (co-founder, A24): We used to always talk about Oh, theres gotta be a better way.. Sacco: I used to think seeing people faint was what happened in movies. A24 Co-Founder John Hodges Exits - Yahoo Aizenberg: When I started, we didnt have Spring Breakers yet, but the whole focus of that very first meeting I went to was like, How do we get Spring Breakers? From award-winning writing and photography to binge-ready videos to electric live events, GQ meets millions of modern men where they live, creating the moments that create conversations. In 2017,[4] Moonlight won the Academy Award for Best Picture (the first such award for the company), Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor (Mahershala Ali). So it was strange, if you were a moviegoer in 2013, to see the A24 logo pop up again and again before movies as varied and weird as Harmony Korines Spring Breakers and Sofia Coppolas The Bling Ring, James Ponsoldts The Spectacular Now and Roman Coppolas A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III. Deadline is a part of Penske Media Corporation. 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. 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. Like Under the Skin, Locke, Enemy. Ad Choices. The gross guysand hes like, All right. Zoe Beyer (marketing, A24): Spring Breakers had a whole Oscar campaign. I thought it would get a distributorI thought it was good enough for that. We get credit for it even when we have nothing to do with it. They had faith that people would continue to show up. Katz: We have a better relationship with him now. A24 is responsible for such films as Lady Bird, Moonlight, Eighth Grade, Hereditary, The Witch, The Lobster, Ex Machina & more. 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. And although it describes itself as Midnight Madness, the film didnt start until close to one oclock in the morning. Contrast that with its embrace of every grimy detail of demented dubstep nightmare Spring Breakers, for which the company went so far as to mount a sincere consider this sh*t awards campaign for James Franco. Ask for forgiveness. I think it just showed that we cared about these movies so much. Spring Breakers had a whole Oscar campaign: Consider This Shit.Zoe Beyer. 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. And then over the course of, like, four months, we bought a lot of movies. Producer: Safety Not Guaranteed. How great it was. 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. Fenkel: We had a meeting. The photo has been replaced. I won, I think, L.A. Film Critics and maybe one other. [7], Guggenheim Partners provided the seed money for A24 The company was started to share "movies from a distinctive point of view". Im glad it all worked out. Because even the companys failures are interesting. 2023 Variety Media, LLC. On the most literal level, an A24 film is budgeted from anywhere between $1 million (Obvious Child) and $20 million (A Most Violent Year). A24 (company) net worth and salary income estimation It was social media. And A24 was the place that took the risk. The best scares always come from unexpected places. Theyre making people want to go to the cinema again to see this kind of stuff, rather than staying at home. John Cornelius Hodge (Squatty Roo, Jeep, Rabbit) was born on 25 July, 1907 in Cambridge, MA, is an American saxophonist. But in a shift from its typical way of doing business, A24 acquired Room based on its script, before shooting had even begun. I actually tied with Jared [Leto], who obviously won the Oscar that year, for L.A. Film Critics. a24 john hodges net worth. We just had to catch up to that idea. He also produced . (For context, the Spring Breakers Facebook page has 1.1 million likes, while that for Fox Searchlights Best Picture-winning Birdman has only 289,000.) I think that was Nicolette, actually: Consider This Shit.. Here's who: Daniel Katz, David Fenkel, John Hodges and James Schultz. A24 was founded in 2012 by Daniel Katz, David Fenkel and John Hodges. They just need to know how it feels.. We want to go two thousand screens. Thats very unusual. NetWorthSpot.com's industry expertise thinks A24's net worth at $1.89 million, but A24's finalized net worth is still being verified. 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. Stay plugged in to the industry with our free newsletter. Katz: Tuesday morning, I remember, we had a little whiskey for him. A24s initial funding came via an infusion of capital from Guggenheim Partners, the investment firm at which Katz previously oversaw film financing. And I think that really helped the movie. Some dissatisfied customers later accused the marketing campaign of misrepresenting the movie as a fun adolescent romp. It is based in New York City . An Industry Arts Company. Like, no way in hell. This elegant, yet sadistic horror film from Austria resembles Michael Hanekes Funny Games, yet the home invader was under the victims noses all along. 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. Signup for Breaking News Alerts & Newsletters. The news of Hodges exit was abrupt, but one source said the move has been in the works for some time. [16] The company, with cooperation from Bank of America, J.P. Morgan & Co. and SunTrust Banks, also raised its line of credit from $50 million to $125 million a month later to build upon its operations. Dont get left behind. Its exciting. Kapadia: There were other films that had a lot more money in their campaign and were everywhere. Jenkins: I just would never allow myself to believe that something I made could win Best Picture. 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. I dunno! I mean, it made sense at the time. Whoa! Because theyd made a curated, awesome, crafted film. Fenkel: I was at the Union Square theater, and they couldnt have had enough theaters. Hodges previously served as head of production and development at Big Beach Films and exec produced "Our Idiot Brother" and "Safety Not Guaranteed.". Did Moonlight just win Best Picture?. Photos courtesy A24, by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images, and Janette Pellegrini/WireImage/Getty Images. Photo illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker. 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). 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). 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. II was tasked. 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. It was another way of getting the message out there. Fenkel: But it was like, Youre not going to be 20 minutes late for Scott Rudin. So you ran. And they even never uttered the words, What would it be like in a cheaper state? John has been a trusted partner who helped conceive A24 and for that we will always be grateful, noted A24 in a statement. Fenkel: So hes booking, what, fifteen hundred screens? Hodges had run A24 with David Fenkel and Daniel Katz as a ruling troika, albeit one that operated without offices (located in Chelsea, the company was known for its open space and banquette tables). 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. I think we lost control. I am incredibly proud of the company we created and of the amazing team at A24 that has been integral to its success. And we werent thinking about that. You will be redirected back to your article in, Lionsgate Re-Ups Vice Chairman Michael Burns And COO Brian Goldsmith With Starz Transaction Looming, Tom Sizemore Dies: 'Saving Private Ryan' & 'Black Hawk Down' Star Was 61; Reactions + Career In Photos, Dark Harvest: Casey Likes & Emyri Crutchfield Tapped To Star In MGM Horror Film, Robbie Amell & Stephen Amell To Star In Code 8 Sequel, Abby Miller Toplines Jess Plus None; Chiara DAmbrosio Joins Bandit; Bianca DAmbrosio Cast In Call Jane; Lawrence Kao, Kai Cech Star In The Longest Sleep- Film Casting Briefs, Rachael Ray Daytime Talk Show To End After 17 Seasons, Eyes $45.5M Opening In U.S., A Record For Rocky Spinoff Franchise & Amazon, SAG-AFTRA And Casting Directors Weigh In On Self-Tape Controversy, Oscar Winner Guillermo Del Toro On The Films That Lit His Fuse. Fenkel: That kind of hit. John. IMDb, the world's most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content. 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. I just started talking. When an A24 acquisitions exec pitched the story to me, excitedly laying out the plot in broad but heartbreaking strokes, he asked if it sounded like an A24 film. 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. The outfit is new enough that the same people have been working there from the very beginning, and the consistency of their titles reflects that of their tastes. A24 has only managed to turn each of its main-slate films into an event because the companys been ruthless and visionary when it comes to determining the difference. I dont mean it that way. Aizenberg: That first private plane didnt make it to Austin. I think we all were kind of a bit shell-shocked. John Hodges is a producer and the founder of A24 alongside David Katz and David Fenkel. Everybody wants to be A24. Katz: They were kind of comfortable with the Under the Skin release. With how bad it tested. Theres music labels I can think of as well. Its a film about guilt that forever haunts you and the fear of being watched. And then we drank a huge amount of red wine. No one had a voice. And then, in 08, the bubble burst, and the economic downturn probably had a little bit of impact. The Little Movie Studio That Could - The New York Times 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. Subsequent DirectTV titles havent fared much better (in fact, most have fared much worse), and it soon became clear that these early acquisitions were the unloved stepchildren of the A24 family. That broke the film out., For Room director Lenny Abrahamson, working with A24 on his films campaign has been a dramatic change. There are more glamorous things to be, in Hollywood, than an independent distribution company. The fact that we were able to sign any movies out of that office is absurd. We werent doing anything like that. More recently, it expanded from being an acquisitions-only distributor to producing home-grown fare as well as branching into TV. Patrick Stewart (actor, Green Room): [The premiere of Green Room] was at the Toronto Film Festivals Midnight Madness. Trey Edward Schultz's moody, atmospheric thriller plays on our country's present division and how mistrust in others can come back to harm us. I still think that its morally questionable, but now I realize that the publicity people do stuff, and that stuff is real.. Good A24 films anticipate the zeitgeist, and the best ones galvanize it. So when I saw that, I was like, Okay, those guys, they know what they are doing.. I asked him what he wants his company to be. John Hodges | A24 Films Wiki | Fandom A24, originally a small independent movie distributor, has quickly transformed into one of the most respected and successful names in cinema production. I was like, I think I need to find another job., Aizenberg: They were basically like, Dont release this movie.. And I was just acting! The company is behind instant fan favorites like Uncut Gems, Ladybird, The Lighthouse, and Everything Everywhere All at Once. [23], On March 26, 2018, co-founder John Hodges announced that he was exiting the company. In recent years, the recession and the concurrent rise of VOD streaming services have already torpedoed the midbudget movie. Fenkel: Id love to say from the first cut we knew. A24 Founding Partner John Hodges to Exit Daniel Katz and David Fenkel will continue to oversee the NYC-based indie Thom Geier | March 26, 2018 @ 10:08 AM A24 founding partner John Hodges. Colin Farrell (actor, The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer): They have such a great eye for these small little films and rich and unique stories that may have not found it to the big screen if it wasnt for them. That was a thing. How A24 Revolutionised What It Means To Be A Film Studio It was me! 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. 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. Igoe: That morning was crazy. Were putting together a gift basket of glass guns and a gift basket with munchies. Kapadia: Theyve won Best Picture. And that was our communication for booking theaters. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Probably the best place to screen-test the movie. That was just acting! It was not like being in a cinema. Discover Johnny Hodges's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. (He won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award for Best Supporting Actor). Nicolette Aizenberg (distribution executive, A24): It is very cyclical. Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted. 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. Fenkel: I stare straight ahead. I legitimately watched people almost pass out. I mean, I have no idea what theyre doing, really. No additional changes in management will be made, said A24, which will continue to develop and produce a growing slate of content across film and television. Fenkel: One thing we notice is now people are saying, Oh, good job. Fenkel: Look at The Witch. Her film The Invitation" plays on agitation and insecurities between a group of old friends and some suspicious strangers at a lavish dinner party. [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. John Hodges is leaving A24, the Oscar-winning indie studio that he co-founded. Beginning with hedonistic images of Disney starlets gone wild, the campaign consisted of producing Facebook ads that could also function as contentpeople wanted to share this stuff. Sacco: We were on our way to the bathroom. Your vision is incredible.. [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. 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. 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]. Franco: I would bet that [Alien] was one of the biggest, most popular Halloween costumes that year. Steven Spielberg publicly predicted the implosion of the film industry, which is sort of like God telling you to brace for rain. The company said he will exit to focus on future opportunities, but did not clarify beyond that statement. Where its like: Im in. Zach Baron is GQs staff writer. Wed be like, Heavey, just make sure hes alive and you can get him to communicate.. Miramax, they were a huge deal, and also Fox Searchlight. . Were gonna put it in theaters, and were gonna find a way to keep it there. Now, look, at that point, none of us were thinking, Hey, were gonna win Best Picture! But we wanted to give the movie the chance to have as much of a life as we possibly could. We get movies. And the only thing we could put it in was a cardboard box with duct tape. 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. It was like Broadcast News. It was millions in one day. 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.. A24 has also been nominated and won many Golden Globes, British Academy Film Awards, and Critics' Choice Movie Awards. We werent a fully formed company yet. Fenkel: We test-screened [Spring Breakers] in downtown Manhattan. The films were darlingsincluding David Michds The Rover, starring Robert Pattinson; Denis Villeneuves Enemy, starring Jake Gyllenhaal; and Jonathan Glazers Under the Skin, starring Scarlett Johanssonand, by and large, box-office underperformers. I think Spring Breakers really put them on the map, as far as I could tell. [24], On November 15, 2018, A24 and Apple announced that they had entered into a multi-year partnership where A24 will produce a slate of original films for Apple. We literally didnt know what to do. It was crazy. Company Details: Sacco: I show up at the airport. You walk through that office, and there arent a lot of people that look like theyre from Liberty City, Miami. Whatever lingering reservations I had about the VOD side of A24s business were dismantled by the recent rumblings of a demonically possessed goat: The DirecTV logo may still be lurking toward the bottom of The Witchs teaser poster (which accurately identifies and champions Black Phillip as the movies breakout star), but at some point along the way it was decided that this crowd-pleasing, pants-ruining work of art has the makings of a communal sensation, and A24 pivoted. And so with [The Rover], they took that into account, and instead of blowing loads of money, [they did] more targeted marketing and also really sophisticated online campaigns and stuff. Aizenberg: I remember that Sunday we all got on the phone and were like, Were going over a thousand screens.. Right after we did those three films, I dont think we had really purchased a film for the following year. Franco: I actually did win some awards. "I'm thrilled to be joining the team at Jax,". A24 co-founder John Hodges is exiting the indie companyto focus on future opportunities, he and the company jointly announced on Monday. Then he had this very high-tech, nuanced process, which was printing out a spreadsheet, and then when he would book a theater, he would write it down on the spreadsheet, and then when the spreadsheet was full, hed push it over from his desk to my desk. Lets do Kevin Smith horror! With Hodges leaving, the company behind the Oscar-winning best pictureMoonlight made it clear that no additional changes in management will be made. The Bling Ring provoked Emma Watson to cast off the shadow of Hermione Granger and step into the pink Juicy Couture sweatpants of a spoiled teen criminal in contemporary Hollywood. The company said he will exit to focus on "future opportunities," but did not clarify beyond that statement.. A24s television division released The Carmichael Show.. The optimistic way to view this situation is that A24 is getting much better at buying good movies for its DirecTV deal, rather than filler like Barely Lethal. The photo has been . Rather than carpet-bomb the whole country with prohibitively expensive television ads, A24 partnered with a social marketing agency called theAudience in order to more precisely reach its target demographic. But A24, it became clear when I spoke to the companys employees, saw Spring Breakers as a Trojan horse for progressive cinemathe company less concerned about the nine kids who found the film too weird than they were the one kid who went home and rented Gummo. Eggers: In the very beginning, when we went to Sundance initially, I didnt think that this was going to have such a large audience. Garland: I would say that if Ex Machina had been distributed by a big studiothis isnt actually a criticism of studios; its actually just a statement of factthe film would not have been remotely as well received or successful as it was. Apple Not Buying A24, but Silicon Valley Increasingly - IndieWire I just It premiered at Sundance in January, where it deservedly won the World Cinema Dramatic Competition. 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. It is currently unknown if this slate of films will have a theatrical release or be exclusive to Apple's Apple TV+ streaming service. Were good. The Rover found a mentally deficient Robert Pattinson singing Keri Hilsons Pretty Girl Rock in the deserts of post-apocalyptic Australia. So what is an A24 film? Their hair and makeup people, actually, are the people that had an issue with this. Gif excerpt from the film Room via A24 Films. Whether thats old white people in the Academy, or people all over the country, or frankly the rest of the world. As of April 2022[update], twenty-seven episodes had been released. We tried to get the Union Square movie theaterwe didnt have a theatrical booking yet. 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. When it happens again and again, thats very, very intelligent work and planning. 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? The company said he will exit to focus on "future opportunities," but did not clarify beyond that statement. Were passionate. But as A24 initiates the second phase of its existence, a transition that includes financing its own films and branching out into television, the companys exponential growth may find it becoming part of the problem it had once seemed destined to solve. you never leave your partner especially in a fire villas san angel rosarito a24 john hodges net worth. Only Lovers Left Alive drips with style, wisdom and ironic humor as Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton play hip, immortal layabouts. They came on strong in the late 90s, really. And you can really see over the past few years, it really, really hasnt at all. All Rights Reserved. Your eyes dont gloss over James Franco as a trap music Jesus. And that takes time. But it was word of mouth. And I remember hearing she was really upset. Johnny Hodges Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth, Family The fact theyre vampires might just be an excuse for them to wear sunglasses indoors. Starting off moderately in 2013 with A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, the company's growth started with the release of Spring Breakers later that year. We saw the red envelope. Aizenberg: Ex Machina winning for visual effects was the most shocking thing. Fenkel: I just cannot stop. Profile of the independent film distributor A24, the company behind A24 Films - Production List | Film & Television Industry Alliance 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.