A24 (company)

A24 was founded on August 20, 2012, by film veterans Daniel Katz, David Fenkel, and John Hodges. 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.[3] 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.[5]

Guggenheim Partners provided the seed money for A24. The company was started for the founders to experience the company's "movies from a distinctive point of view".[6] In October 2012, Nicolette Aizenberg joined as head of publicity, carrying over from 42West where she was senior publicity executive.[7]

The company began its distribution of films in 2013.[8] The company marked its first theatrical release with Roman Coppola's A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, which had a limited release. Other 2013 theatrical releases included Sally Potter's Ginger & Rosa, Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers, Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring, and James Ponsoldt's The Spectacular Now.[9][10]

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 to be distributed effectively.[11] 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.[12]

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. The company also announced that they would also finance and develop pilots.[13]

In January 2016, Sasha Lloyd joined the company to handle all film, television distribution and business development in the international marketplace.[14] 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.[15] In April, the company acquired all foreign rights to Swiss Army Man, distributing the film in all territories, and partnering with distributors who previously acquired rights to the film, a first for the company.[16] In June, the company, along with Oscilloscope and distributor Honora, joined BitTorrent Now to distribute the work of their portfolio across the ad-supported service.[17]

In January 2017, the company acquired the United States and Chinese distribution rights for their first foreign language film, Menashe.[18]

On February 20, 2018, A24 launched a podcast titled The A24 Podcast.[19][20] Episodes are based around a discussion between two members of the film industry. Notable guests to the show include Bo Burnham, Paul Schrader, Sofia Coppola, Alia Shawkat and Martin Scorsese. Despite lacking any pre-defined structure, episodes generally contain discussions around recent works of the two guests, allowing for branching discussions to other areas. As of July 2019, fifteen episodes have been released.

On March 26, 2018, co-founder John Hodges announced that he was exiting the company.[21]

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. This was not a first-look deal, meaning that A24 can continue to produce and acquire films to release outside of the deal, and that it wouldn't affect previous deals that A24 had signed with other companies. It is currently unknown if this slate of films will have a theatrical release or be exclusive to Apple's Apple TV+ streaming service.[22]