How A24 turned cinema into a lifestyle

0:00Branding is how you tell the world what you're about. I think about A24. They built a brand that's all about bold, innovative storytelling. When people see that logo, they know they're getting something fucking weird. They're getting some different boundary pushing. It's gonna be crazy. Yeah, they did such a great job in laying the foundation. People instantly know the vibe. Hey, pals, it's Emily here alone again while Andrea is on vacation, and you're listening to Cujo, a.k.a. The Culture Journalist, a podcast about culture in the age of platforms. With a catalog full of arthouse favorites like The Witch, Spring Breakers, Moonlight, and Uncut Gems, it's hard to deny that A24 occupies a unique position in the zeitgeist.

0:45In a Hollywood landscape that can feel like it's becoming more risk-averse by the year, see our recent episode with Andrew DeWard on his book Derivative Media, the artist-forward distributor and studio has become synonymous with a dream that to many American cultural producers feels increasingly remote. A kind of impossible reconciliation of art and commerce. The conviction that one can doggedly put quality art out into the marketplace and see it actually succeed. But is it accurate to see A24, as many of its fans do, as the company that is single-handedly saving American cinema? Or is it all just a carefully crafted illusion, one that is probably more a testament to the importance of savvy brand positioning and good graphic design than it is to the actual quality of the films in its catalog?

1:36We brought on the Las Vegas-based writer and critic Nicholas Russell, author of an excellent essay for Dirt called The Popular Alternative, The State of A24, to discuss how the company grew from its humble roots as an upstart indie film distributor to a studio and lifestyle brand in the mold of Disney, albeit one for urban-dwelling adults who pride themselves in being smart cultural consumers. We talk about how the company successfully commodified the idea, if not the reality, of being a cinephile, the similarities between the A24 baseball cap and the New Yorker tote, and what Nicholas describes as the longstanding tension between, quote, A24 the studio and A24 the startup, one recently complicated by a$100 million cash injection from Josh Kushner's Thrive Capital, a major investor in open AI.

2:31We also discuss the aesthetic elements and political tropes that A24 tends to foreground and also shy away from in its films, and the rise of Neon, which you may know is a distributor behind critical favorites like Parasite, Nora, and How to Blow Up a Pipeline as the, quote, other popular alternative. We'll be right back with Nicholas after the break.

3:03She want to slide and talk. If she likes Halloween, of course. She a star red carpet source. Maybe we can make a film like A24. Guest list fine, I'll bring 20 more. Might, might check two steps forward to the... The Culture Journalist is an independent project that relies on word of mouth and is funded entirely by listeners. If this pod had something meaningful to your life and you want to access everything we put out, please consider supporting our work by becoming a paid subscriber over at our sub stack. Paid subscribers receive access to our Discord community the Cujoplex, full access to bonus episodes, and more goodies.

3:38You can get it all right now by subscribing over at theculturejournalist.substack.com. Hey guys, we are here with Nicholas Russell. Nicholas, thank you so much for coming on the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. So I know that this piece had been in the works for a long time, or I saw you write that on Twitter. What drew you to writing about A24? Was there something that irked you or that felt like it hadn't been said? It's interesting because this piece originally started at a different publication and sort of Genesis was me and an editor going back and forth about topics in culture that maybe hadn't been given an in-depth look.

4:24And A24 came up And it seemed at the time, this is probably over a year ago at this point, that A24 had been talked about or talked around in a very superficial way. And it's maybe a point of irritation amongst film critics bringing up A24 because there is such an identifiable thing that they do that is kind of ephemeral. but once you invoke it people tend to know kind of what you're talking about whether it's for lack of a better word the vibe of one other movies or the look or the bandied about word aesthetic which you know to your question of was there something that drew me to it or annoyed me about it is this illusion of uniform quality amongst their releases which I think is an artifact of the marketing which we can get into.

5:18I've always been really suspicious of upstart companies in Hollywood that are promising audiences and shareholders that they're going to do something different and new and sort of unprecedented, which is usually, you know, turning on this ironic marshalling of, well, actually, you know, we're going back to the roots of cinema, sort of classic Hollywood, which A24 obviously has endeavored to do with the way that they talk about themselves, even with their logo like minor interesting tidbit is like you know when they were founded they hired this design company to design their logo and one of the sort of points that founders wanted to hit was something modern but also hearkening back to the like golden age of hollywood which is the kind of bullshit you hear with people talking about fonts and it seems like There is a sense that A24 had really succeeded in becoming synonymous with this feel, this mission, and that there reaches a point where the feel and the mission and the reputation kind of could become a stand-in for quality or be leveraged in such a way that the marketing speaks louder than everything else.

6:34It's interesting, Ray. There's an earlier draft of the piece that talks about this idea that no one talks about other bigger production companies like they talk about A24. For instance, when someone thinks of Universal, especially now, maybe you have certain associations. You think of early mid-century Universal Monsters, Dracula, The Little Man, The Greatest Black Mirror, that kind of thing. Or you think of big budget films like Oppenheimer or something. But if you go through the slate of Universal Films, you are not seeing something that communicates to you a corporate ethos about Universal.

7:14You recognize the logo, obviously. That's one of the biggest things that all these Hollywood production companies have. Most Americans certainly can do it. Oh, yeah, the Columbia logo with the woman holding the torch or, I don't know, Regency or Focus Features. You know, you become a nerd to seeing these visual signifiers of a brand, but they don't necessarily tell you very much about the movie you're about to see. Even if, you know, internally, obviously, these corporations are selling a different narrative, like prizing a certain kind of artistry or whatever. whatever right but a24 people are always sort of thinking of the same thing which is like prestige like glossy very well crafted intentional filmmaking and i think as i argue in the essay a lot of that is built off of the back of the very early era of a24 we're talking like from their inception in 2012 up to 2018 with Gems.

8:23That is the period of time that I think a lot of audiences are still unintentionally invoking when they see the A24 log. Oh yeah, The Witch, or The Bling Ring, or Spring Breakers, which was like one of the really big early hits for them. And then it trickles down, right? You start thinking about filmmakers and auteurs, which is, I think, one of the main things that A24 sort of prides itself on is harboring and nurturing up and coming filmmakers in singular visions. So Sofia Coppola, Paul Schrader, the Safdie brothers, you know, there's like a Greta Gerwig, you know, with Lady Bird, Barry Jenkins with Moonlight.

9:09They prize the director or writer director sort of over the stars that are in these movies as a point of, you know, redirecting your attention towards like the real craft of these movies. which I don't know my argument in the piece is that this is ironic because A24 were their biggest hits or at least a lot of them they didn't produce them they merely distributed them that was what A24 was when they started out you know they were a distribution company. How would you describe A24's unique position in the zeitgeist? How would you know its supporters its biggest fans describe it versus how what its detractors maybe describe it.

9:56One of the casualties of subsequent drafts of this essay was this idea of the A24 fan, right? And they're sort of an easy punching bag because they are the most outwardly consumerist and A24 caters to this kind of person. It's kind of a cliche by now to talk about A24 merch, You go to their merch store, it's rife with clothes and knickknacks, souvenirs, all this sort of stuff that is referencing their films or recreations of props from their films. This intense, kind of very deliberate commodification of objects in the sort of A24 pantheon. And I think there is an idea of the A24 fan, like super fan, which, you know, as I say in the piece, I'm skeptical of if this person really exists.

10:54But, you know, there's someone who has to get their hands on everything that A24 produces and does and sees every one of their movies and does so because they feel that A24 is a tastemaker and that they are getting in on something unique within the Hollywood system. right like this is a company that not only makes films and tv shows but has a sort of lifestyle culture that comes alongside it is it just synonymous with like i am a fan or supporter of independent cinema like if you wear the new yorker tote it's like i'm an intellectual and i support the literary arts or whatever what does it mean if you wear an e24 tote i don't know i I think the New Yorker tote is a good comparison because it's like the New Yorker tote has sort of exceeded the bounds of what it signifies, right?

11:50It's like you don't know if that person reads. You don't know how they got that tote to begin with. And so it's like A24, if I see someone more often than not, it's not a tote, it's like a baseball cap. It's a kind of brand loyalty that just for me as the kind of person I am just doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me. but it means that you're buying into an idea of what the company is, right? And I think one of the things that annoys me, and if I had to be slotted into the binary of fan or detractor, I'd probably be a detractor, but it's not on principle, right? I think I love a lot of A24 films.

12:30I don't love them because they're A24 films, though. And I think maybe that is the difference between the two camps is A24 doesn't come first in my estimation of like how I view other movies but I think they want you to think about that first and often are like trying to obscure the degree to which they are or not involved in the production there was something within the sort of cinephile film critic community which can be like incredibly insular and sort of like horrifying to to be part of but like there was a meme going around that was like you know these two cartoon characters like one of them is arguing that a24 is awesome and the other one is like but they're a distribution company first they don't even produce their movies like as a point of like a gotcha right and i think the deeper sort of implication there that is like rightfully being made fun of is the fact that what a24's involvement is ultimately doesn't matter the brand is what matters and the association is what matters so you know someone in a conversation you'd be like i love the witch and then and someone who hates a24 could be like well they didn't even produce that movie ultimately it doesn't matter and this is the same thing with neon which we can talk about that later But like, the point is, the brand gets slapped on to the product.

13:56And it confers a kind of quality on its own before you even see the thing. This happens a lot, obviously, like, people don't really talk about it as much, because I think A24 still is it's on the way out of being this niche indie thing. But you know, HBO Max does this all the time, right? Like they acquire films that they didn't produce but because they are either in the american or international market quote unquote premiering them for the first time it gets to be called like a max original even though it's like hbo didn't do anything they just like bought the rights to distribute it and so a24 is a good subject for talking about wider issues or just realities in hollywood which is to say you know behind the scenes, deals are being made in order to bolster careers and bottom lines.

14:48This is all very cynical, but sort of commonplace background noise, how the industry works. And I think the ugly, but very plain truth about A24 is that it is a business. And they would like to obscure that fact. Can you give us a little history of the company? what did it set out to do when it first started and then how did it kind of grow into the juggernaut it is today so yeah 24 started in 2012 by a trio of guys whose names I don't remember off the bat but it ultimately doesn't really matter one of them used to work at Oscilloscope which is a production company one of them used to be in like film finance at like an investment firm And another was like, quote unquote, head of production at this place called Big Beach, indie production company, mostly known for the sunshine.

15:47They all got together and formed A24, which is named after an Italian highway of the same name that one of them was like driving on when they decided to start the company or whatever. But ultimately, like I said before, you know, they started as a distribution company, meaning They went to festivals, they went to trade events within the industry to acquire films that had already been made but did not have, specifically in this case, American distribution. You see this a lot at Cannes or Sundance, Toronto, any film festival, right? You're seeing a lot of films that have been produced by independent partners but don't have any company to actually put those movies either in theaters or on streaming.

16:33and this is how 824's reputations began is like you know they were trying to be very discerning about the kinds of films that they chose and so they officially start distributing films in 2013 and i think their first theatrical release is a movie that no one thinks about anymore which is this movie called a glimpse inside the mind of charles swan the third which is a roman coppola movie roman coppola is someone people might recognize more as a collaborator of wes anderson He typically helps write the stories for his scripts, if not actually writing scripts. But the main big hits from that year were Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring, Harmony Crane's Spring Breakers.

17:16And then a movie that I remember very well, but maybe people don't really think about anymore, is The Spectacular Now, which I believe starred Shailene Woodley and I think Miles Teller. Teen drama. drama but you know they sort of accelerate year to year i mean they strike a deal with direct tv later that year in 2013 they start acquiring other movies like the needle knows enemy and there is a sort of exploratory phase in the next few years where they're just sort of figuring out what they can do they're also you know acquiring investment money sort of grow and i think this is where you start to see a more streamlined kind of output from them and this is where you start to see like more recognizable films that people tend to go around this time you know movies like swiss army man or room or the lobster there starts to be this kind of art housey indie quasi-international flavor to them, wherein you're seeing, for a while, a lot of big-name actors in these indie films.

18:30This doesn't really happen anymore. It's going to happen again with The Smashing Machine, which is, I think it's Benny Safdie's solo directorial effort. The Ping Pong? No, that's a different one. That's Josh Safdie's movie with Timmy. with timothy chalibre which i can't wait to see yeah so like it's funny because like they both individually have a24 movies coming out later this year that are both like i have to assume are going to be in some sort of oscar contention but you know for a while there at the beginning in like midpoint later early part of a24's inception you know you had actors like say robert pattinson coming off of twilight doing you know these sort of gritty indie movies like the rover or you know i mean a pretty funny but unsuccessful version would be like matthew mcconaughey and this movie called the sea of trees you just had like recognizable faces in these unfamiliar sort of contexts where it seemed like they were trying to be taking more scenes as artists and a24 seemed happy to be part of that veneer of being a little bit outro but also you know cool enough for like recognizable celebrities to want to be involved with them and this all comes to a head in 2016 like 2016 really big year for them the witch comes out which you know starts their brief relationship with robert eggers you have i believe american honey by andrea arnold but the real prize is moonlight which is the first film that e24 produces and right out the gate you know they win an oscar for best picture and this sort of catapults them into like a new strata recognition and fame and you know within the next two years you see huge with the sort of cinephile communities like ladybird first reformed florida projects good time and then arguably one of the really really like their biggest ones is hereditary which starts their chicharri oster Yeah, it seemed like after their Moonlight Oscar win, they continued to produce some of the studio's slash distributor's best work for at least a couple of years.

20:57What feels like the height of the brand in terms of if its goal is to marry artistic quality with commercial success? Does that window feel like the bingo moment for them? I think ultimately, up to 2019, they have like a real run of movies that like remain in some senses, like kind of iconic to a lot of people. I think, you know, First Reformed for Paul Schrader, as an example, like represented like a really huge moment in his career, you know, taxi driver. He is like well beloved in the cinema community, but hadn't really had a high profile film come out in several years. and First Reformed which stars Ethan Hawke like became a real flashpoint for Paul Trader's career it's like a very serious-minded very well-made film that touched on a lot of very relevant sort of hot topics but I think my argument is sort of that 2019 is where it all kind of like comes to a head and something kind of depending on your opinion either solidifies or congeals with 824.

22:16It's like a huge year for them. There's like kind of no arguing about it. Sort of starts with Gaspar Inouye's climax. Then comes High Life, Claire Denis's science fiction film with Robert Pattinson, which I think is the one that really sort of, along with Good Time, puts him on a different trajectory in his career as like a serious actor. He had been trying to do that like pretty much the entire time that he was doing Twilight. He did Cosmopolis, which is a paper Cronenberg movie. he'd always had his sights on for lack of a better word like weirder projects but high life is the one that really kind of gets him going on the path that you know leads that a different kind of movie star you have the souvenir by joanna hogg which is like one of my favorite 24 movies which is starring tilda swinton's daughter and then you know summer sort of is where they get going in 2019 midsimar comes out that's like the big to do arguably like their biggest movie of that year just like in the zeitgeist and then you have the lighthouse and then to top it all off in december you have uncut gems and so it's like by the time of uncut gems there is a retroactive streamlining that's happening within the company because 2019 is also the year where a24 releases their own like imprint books wherein their screenplays given a sort of art book treatment very glossy like well-packaged hardcover books about you know their sort of touchstone films it's sort of solidifying this idea of A24 having a lineage even though at this period of time they've only been in the industry for like six years and yeah from there like 2020 on I think is when you start to see a more recognizable sort of visual thing that they do that becomes kind of easy to tag and make fun of or to like identify.

24:17It sort of goes downhill there in my...

24:23If you like what you're hearing on this episode, there's a place where you can join the conversation. It's called Cujoplex, and it's a private online hangout zone on Discord where smart, cool weirdos just like you, you know, people who like talking about the evolving state of independent culture, can congregate, share links, and talk about the news of the day. We've had some great conversations lately about creative economies, media theory, AI, politics, the future of journalism, and even the records and TV shows we've been obsessing over this year. Some of our chats have even inspired episode ideas.

24:59You can get access to Cujoplex along with our monthly bonus episodes by signing up for a paid subscription over at our Substack. That's theculturejournalist.substack.com. You write that there has always been a tension between A24, the studio, and A24, the startup. What was the moment where the balance seemed to tip from studio to startup, as you argue in the piece? Yeah, I think there's a moment in time in Hollywood, this is starting to happen in the early 2020s. But even before then, where private equity is starting to make its presence known in Hollywood, you know, raising money and taking board seats for pretty large scale companies.

25:49One that comes to mind is like Legendary Pictures. I don't know. In my like adolescent brain, I tended to think of Legendary as like kind of action genre-y production company. A place like Skydance where, you know, Tom Cruise has had a long working relationship with them. New studios are being built in places like Atlanta. and there is this sort of rush, this kind of gold rush in Hollywood where before you had a sort of a myriad of advertisers and sort of corporate entities who would be like putting their fingers in the pie. Private equity is like now the place to do this. I mean, one of the unfortunate realities is that private equity is where you're probably able to get a pretty large scale cash infusion very quickly.

26:44The problem is private equity, as anyone knows, is sucking the life out of any industry that it touches. They're resource extractors. I think one of the biggest controversies or TIFFs that happened recently was Sequoia Capital invested in MUBI, the sort of independent streaming service that had a really big hit last year with the substance. A lot of people were really pissed off about that because Sequoia Capital is, I think, the primary concern in this case is their entangled investments with regards to Israel. But it's an uncomfortable topic for a lot of people because I think for a long time there was this association with Hollywood as like a glitzy, corrupt place that was corrupt for sort of insular reasons.

27:37right you had big name producers and movie stars and writers but there wasn't necessarily cross pollination between industries or you know different industrial complexes which is like a lie it's like for example hollywood's always had like a very cushy relationship with like the u.s military but like anyway what ends up happening is a24 starts to have a more ambitious purview with the things that they want to do. Starting, you know, in the 2020s, there is this sense, and I guess it should be, this is a sidebar that is pretty important, is 824 has like no spokespeople. Their marketing campaigns for their films almost always rely on the personality of the stars and the director.

28:25So a really good example of this is the recent film Materialists, Selene Song's second film after Past Lives. You know, you look at the press store for that, it's all about how charming and funny chris evans and dakota johnson and pedra pascal are but other than the sort of obligatory social media presence that a24 has you don't have like anyone in top brass saying anything about materialists which is true for all of their movies the three founders i think two of them are left they don't say anything to the press on purpose it it's very opaque and because of that it can be a little difficult to accurately you know with evidence make a claim about like why a 24 is or isn't doing a certain thing and you know it grants them a mystique because there's never anyone issuing an official statement so all you're left to do is infer you know from the movies they acquire the productions they have of coming down the pipeline and what the people who've worked with them have to say.

29:34And I think it gives them this aura of kind of inscrutability that's kind of cool. It makes it so like when they work with or accept the input and money of private equity investors, for example, I believe it's Jared Kushner who sits on the board of A24 now. Josh Kushner, the Democrat. the democrat brother yes thank you sorry the kushners the j kushners it's easy to get them mixed up but you know a big investor in open ai and just like you have all these really uncomfortable associations which has always been true in hollywood but i think you know it becomes more difficult for a24 to navigate this sort of kind of antiseptic reputation that they've had they don't want to like be seen as getting their hands dirty or getting into bed with like unsavory characters even though that is part and parcel of becoming like a major production company at least in america it's kind of unavoidable just based on like how this industry is propped up you are going to make decisions that are going to piss people off and often are going to run into some really ugly characters one of the like flashpoints that i talk about in the essay is the Oscar campaign for Jonathan Glazer's film The Zone of Interest.

30:56Yes. October 7th had already happened, and part of the campaign was Jonathan Glazer and some of the producers, you know, talking about the kind of weaponization of anti-Semitism with regard to criticism of Hamas and pro-Palestine protesters and movements. There was a big to-do when Zone of Interest won an Oscar, and part of Jonathan Glazer's speech was talking about this. And there was a huge backlash. A lot of very prominent Jewish figures in Hollywood like signed this risible letter talking about the degrees to which, you know, it's anti-Semitic to talk about Israel in a critical fashion. You know, this issue has obviously like exploded since then.

31:40But A24 didn't say anything. A24 - They didn't like stick up, stand up for them. No, you know, they like they didn't send out any sort of signal flare as to what they thought of this situation, which, you know, as I said before, there are no official spokespeople who are issuing these statements for A24. They would rather stay silent. This is not to say that there's no internal like communications department. You know, obviously, like you have a lot of influencers and certain kinds of film critics who get sort of preview screenings for things. And, you know, they want to generate positive press amongst like a willing catered people.

32:21But when it comes to, say, a controversy, there is no sort of like damage control. They sort of like let it they let the thing burn out. And I think you've seen since that moment, A24s tread very carefully in terms of the kinds of movies that they put out. and I think they generally want to avoid controversy as much as possible which is ironic because they also want to be seen as being edgy too. Edgy yeah totally you can't have it both ways yeah like that kind of brings me to the next question which is like you said that whether they produce a film or simply distribute it A24 films all have this sort of recognizable feel or feeling to them, or at least the marketing does.

33:08And, you know, people from the company have acknowledged this themselves. Can you break down that feeling for me a little bit? Like, what aesthetic and thematic elements to A24 films seem to have in common? And conversely, are there certain things or topics they seem to shy away from? I guess you mentioned, like, recently, controversial, like, third rail political issues. Totally. This is, like, a really crass comparison but it's like it's like porn it's like you know when you see it it's like yeah 24 thing is like being cool right which when you try and drill it down into that work you run into a problem because you're kind of like well what exactly this cool mean but i think a24 you watch a trailer from them for like say something like the green knight and what you're being promised which to be clear is what every trailer that is good tries to promise is like a movie beyond any previous cinematic experience that you've ever had i think something that 824 tries to manufacture is this feeling that you're only going to get that from these movies that we produce you're going to get in on the ground floor something really cool or a trend that's about to pop off or you know we're harkening back to like you know old school filmmaking a certain kind of lighting or color grading we're doing certain kinds of filmmaking techniques and there's a sort of you know it's not specific to A24 but I think they certainly indulge in a still sort of fetish of how films feel and look whether it's sort of like talking about shooting on film or you know working with certain kinds of artists, composers, cinematographers.

34:50It's like the mix of things going on that normally for the lay audience member would not matter that much. Like if you're just someone who casually enjoys movies and doesn't really pay attention to how they're made or who makes them, you're not really going to care about that stuff. Just not to say you shouldn't, but I think A24 kind of like makes that to do about who's involved. this was sort of like lampooned recently with the marvel movie thunderbolts one of their trailers was copying to like all the people involved in the movie who have been involved in a24 movies and so like incredible it was like a teaser that was like you know florence q who is in midsmar and the director who was like the main guy behind beef the like netbook show with steven that A24 produced and the cinematographer from Law and the writer from Law and blah blah.

35:46It was like a pretty apt kind of send up of the way that A24 talks about their own films, which is to say like they want to act like each film is historic or notable in some way. But I think you're seeing a lot more flops recently. They're becoming more obvious. death of a unicorn is a good example of a film that has all of the a24 trailer tropes and completely flopped or um this horror film opus starring ayo edibiri from the bear another film that completely flopped and i don't think many people liked liked watching it but you know i think like now a24 is doing they're trying to make up for that with you know quantity releasing more and more films every year and in some ways are kind of hearkening back to their roots later this year.

36:39I mean, like the Safdies both have their big films coming out. They just produced a film with Spike Lee that's starring Denzel Washington. I think they're trying to re-up their sort of cinephile pedigree after a kind of uneven couple years. And what about like, just thematically speaking, I think you have a couple lines about this in the piece that like, there are certain types of emotions or aspects of psychology they like to mine. Totally. Right? Yeah, I think, you know, you see a lot of family stuff in A24 movies, like broken families, a lot of struggles with, say, drug addiction or grief. Trauma.

37:19Trauma, totally. I think one of the more egregious examples was the horror film Bring Her Back, which is directed by this Australian duo who did another A24 film called Talk to Me, which is a little bit and, you know, Bring Her Back has a very sort of cloying kind of trauma narrative that the kind of elevated, quote, an elevated horror sort of genre in it. It's a space that A24 likes to play in a lot. And another example, less on the trauma side, but the sort of quote, unquote, elevated heretic with Hugh Brant. There's a certain kind of movie that they like to make that is, you know, touching on certain topics without doing too much to offend anyone.