At this year's Oscars, the movie "Instantaneous Universe" starring Chinese actress Michelle Yeoh shined. When she delivered her speech, she did not forget to thank the heroes behind the scenes. Brandon Fisher, the winner of Best Actor and the star of "Whale", who appeared on the stage after her, excitedly called out the name of the agency behind the scenes: "Thank you to our studio A24 for making such a bold movie!" ”
After that night, the name A24 spread around the world. The two biggest winners of the Oscars, "Instantaneous Universe" and "Whale", are both films produced by A24, and A24 has won nine awards at this year's Oscars, becoming the largest institutional winner of this year's Oscars. After the glory, more people began to look through A24's past, only to find that the independent film company, which had just been established for 11 years, had become synonymous with niche, subculture and avant-garde thinking. The films they produce and distribute always win international awards, and even influence a group of loyal fans who only follow "A24 productions".
After the impact of the pandemic on the global film industry, A24's success is now the envy of many mainstream and traditional filmmakers. Looking back on the past, behind the success of A24, of course, there is a story driven by idealism, but at the same time, it must also be a story of seizing opportunities and resources in the Internet era and trying to survive.
A still from "Instantaneous Universe".
A mysterious organization that upends Hollywood
Open the website of A24 Company, and you will be greeted by a huge movie poster with several of the latest movies coming out in 2023 in large font, click on it to see more introductions and trailers. Compared to visually appealing posters and movie presentations, A24's well-known logo is less conspicuous and is hidden at the top of the web page. The design of this kind of page seems to be a manifesto: for the company, the most important thing they care about is whether the audience can understand the content of their film in the first place. Other than that, everything else, they can ignore.
This mysterious temperament that only outputs content and does not care about its own display is the image that A24 has carefully created for itself over the years. Since A24's films have emerged in the independent film industry, there have always been peers and media who want to explore the secret of their success, but everyone's understanding of them has always been limited, and only a few media outlets can interview the company's founders. At international award ceremonies, A24's films frequently win gold, but people rarely see several founders, who hide themselves well behind their works.
There is an interesting story about the "mystery" of the A24. After winning awards for "Instantaneous Universe" and "Whale", Peter Barthes, a veteran Hollywood filmmaker who has served as vice president of production at Paramount, MGM and other companies, wrote that he began contacting A24 six years ago to explore their successful experience in small-budget films, and repeatedly hit a wall. At the beginning, the 80-year-old veteran in the film industry was rejected by A24 "without giving face". Later, Bart was finally invited by A24 to chat at the company's headquarters in Manhattan, New York, but during the conversation, he did not get any information he needed, and was instead asked a lot of questions by employees. In the end, only one executive spoke to him bluntly: They were afraid of attention from the outside world, and no one had been to the office before. In the end, Peter Barthes had to dismiss his own idea of exploring the A24.
Poster for the movie "Whale".
A24, which treats Hollywood predecessors so unceremoniously, presents the opposite face among netizens and fans: in their opinion, A24 is the most "cool" cultural symbol, and the movies they produce are cultural and quality guarantees. These films either convey alternative thinking about society, or horror films with a unique style, or show the lives of minorities and vulnerable groups, and it seems that many people are making films for this company, collectively digging into the alternative side of this world. Fans share movie reviews on social networking sites, chat with A24's official social accounts, and even buy A24's peripheral clothing, let their relatives and pets try them on, and excitedly show their logo to take photos. Some media joked that few film studios can form a dedicated fan base, but A24 has done it.
In 2022, A24 received $225 million in new financing, and the company's face became clearer. It turns out to have an unpretentious history, just one of many ordinary startups in the United States, and its original three founders are all veterans of the film industry. Among them, the core founder Daniel Katz is the head of the Guggenheim Partnership's film financing program, and the other two founders also have a lot of experience running independent films. Because Katz has always wanted to set up his own film company, since 2012, three friends have taken an investment from the Guggenheim to start a joint business. Even the inexplicable-sounding but cool name "A24" came up with improvised while driving along the A24 in southern Italy.
So, is such a simple "workshop", a mysterious small gang, by what subverted Hollywood?
The filming scene of "Instantaneous Universe"
Help those who are talented
In 2017, after winning Best Picture at the Oscars for the independently produced "Moonlight Boy", A24 founder Katz and others gave a rare interview to GQ magazine to personally unveil this mysterious organization. At the time, Katz mentioned that they wanted to use their power to make movies "to help talented people." At the beginning of A24's business, several people in the market of large numbers of people, fancy the highly potential niche literary film market, they want more audiences to enter the cinema to watch these niche literary films.
Although Katz did not say whether their choice was the result of market analysis, from the perspective of the film industry at that time, the choice to target the market at niche literary films was quite rational and forward-looking. In 2012, the American film industry reached a booming point, and blockbusters still firmly occupied the big screen. That year, the US/Canada region grossed $10.8 billion, the highest level in a decade. Disney, Warner, Sony and other movie giants continue to create blockbuster myths, "Avengers", "Batman", "007: Skyfall Crisis" and other blockbusters are still the hottest topics of the year, these three movies, but also occupied the top three positions in the box office of the United States/Canada that year.
In this way, blockbusters have not left too much market for niche literary films. However, the data also shows that the crisis of film creativity of large companies has begun to appear. Disney Pictures, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures, these six giant companies, united to form the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), a well-known organization. According to a 2012 statistic from the organization, the number of films produced by the six companies and their subsidiaries fell from 139 in 2007 to 99 in 2012, according to a 2012 statistic. The report also shows that in the United States and Canada, the average number of movie viewings in the United States and Canada has surpassed that of white groups, ranking first among all ethnic groups. In addition, people over the age of 60 are also more likely to go to movie theaters. That is to say, outside the blockbuster, niche group needs are already slowly brewing and are about to surface.
The filmmakers at A24 seem to have smelled these niche needs long ago and decided to be the first to eat crabs. At the beginning, they did not choose to invest in the production of films first, but first started with low-cost literary films in marketing and distribution. After the establishment of the company, they quickly set their sights on major literary and artistic film festivals in the United States, with the aim of buying the most interesting and characteristic works of these film festivals, and successfully selling them to win more audiences. Therefore, most of A24's early right-hand employees have excellent marketing and distribution resumes, and they have a pair of eyes for appraising good movies, and these people have repeatedly appeared in Sundance, Southwest and other literary and artistic film festivals, greedily digging the latest film resources.
Soon, the opportunity came. In 2013, after buying the distribution rights of two literary films, A24 took a fancy to a crime film about young people "Spring Break", which although the cost is not high, it gathers two popular stars, Selena Gomez and James Franco, which has great potential among young people. A24 is determined to take the distribution rights to the film. To convince the filmmakers, the company customized a gun-shaped glass pipe based on the content of the film, which was delivered by plane by the executive himself, and the name of the film was engraved on the pipe. This move impressed the producers. Since then, A24 has begun to cooperate with network marketing companies to promote the film, and they released the actor James Franco's dirty braid and gold teeth in the play at the right time before the film's release, and the actor's previous image with a sense of contrast attracted a large number of retweets from young people.
The result was a success. The attention of young audiences fully drove the box office of "Spring Break". As a result, A24's reputation in the independent film industry was a hit. They not only proved that niche literary films can make money, but also won the respect of independent filmmakers in the process. Whether it is communication with filmmakers or the way of online marketing, A24 can always grasp the right "professionalism" between literature and business, making people feel that they really understand movies. As Spring Break director HJI Colin said, "Hollywood is run by finance people, so it's exciting when you suddenly have a discussion with someone who isn't a pure finance person." ”
The spiritual home of "weird coffee"
Since 2014, A24, which successfully "opened" in the previous year, began to frantically buy the distribution rights of niche literary films at a rate of more than a dozen films per year. These films were carefully selected by A24, and at first even they could not tell what the criteria for this selection of films were, but it was found that the films launched by A24 began to show a similar temperament, and those stories were always about minorities and unnoticed groups, who always lacked family affection, friendship or love, and occasionally surreal fantasies, but could hit people's fragile emotions in details, or make people reflect on social issues.
Because these films are literary films, their own production costs are not high, and the purchase of their distribution rights will not cost too much, so under such a cheap and word-of-mouth operation mode, A24's films began to be widely acclaimed. 2014's "Under the Skin", 2015's "Ex Machina" and 2016's "Room" are still talked about by fans, among which "Room" also won the Oscar for Best Actress.
A still from "The Room".
"Ex Machina" stills.
Since then, A24, which understands content and has good taste, has begun to enter the field of film production. 2016's "Moonlight Boy" is A24's first self-funded, independently produced film, this film gathers many niche elements: black ethnicity, LGBT community, drug problems, bullying, etc., but aside from these elements, the emotional performance of the whole play is still subtle and delicate, which can make most people empathize. Obviously, "Moonlight Boy" is such a typical "A24 movie", and it has also won the hearts of audiences and judges. In 2017, the film beat the winning hit La La Land for best picture at the Oscars, and also regained A24's fame, transforming from a distribution company to a well-known content production company in the industry.
Soon, independent filmmakers found that A24 is not only good at marketing literary films, but also quite distinctive in production. And their secret is not complicated, which is two words: let go. Many filmmakers have mentioned that compared with the calculations and complicated processes of large companies, A24, which is not large, does things more crisply, has no desire for control and interference, and will reserve sufficient space for the personality of filmmakers. Moreover, the more non-mainstream, weird, and "weird" actors the film itself, the more A24 seems to have confidence in these films, and they can see the creative spirit and energy hidden behind these "weird" and out of line. This confidence gives independent filmmakers the greatest support. Of course, this confidence is also based on A24's full confidence in its own film distribution and operation capabilities.
There are many more such stories. Independent director David Lowry co-produced "The Green Knight" with A24 a few years ago, and even he felt that no one cared about this story inspired by ancient poetry, but A24 still cooperated with him to make the film and put the film on the big screen despite the box office pressure of the new crown epidemic. Chinese director Wang Ziyi released the independent film "Don't Tell Her" in A24 in 2019, and at first this story about Chinese families didn't sound like a hot choice in the market, but A24 took a fancy to the sincere telling of family affection and insisted on release. As a result, the film won the actress Awkwafina a Golden Globe Award, the first Golden Globe Award in history for an Asian-American actor. As a result, in the cooperation again and again, the filmmakers have made friends with A24 because of the trust they have accumulated, and continue to cooperate to output better content.
Run a literary company with a geek spirit
A24 is not only good at creating literary styles. In the words of William Zhou, a Chinese film practitioner who once interned and worked at A24, A24 is more like a company from Silicon Valley. This comment can be said to be quite accurate. Combined with the accounts of those who have been to A24, A24 is managed much like an Internet company. In the early days of the company, there were only about 20 employees, and executives, employees and interns were mixed together, anyone could express their opinions at any time, and the founders often dealt directly with the company's affairs. Bart, a Hollywood senior, saw a similar scene when he came to A24 to learn from the scriptures, and while he was chatting in the conference room, employees flocked into the conference room, asking him questions without anyone pouring him a cup of coffee.
In the early stage of film operation and distribution, this geeky spirit came in handy. According to William Zhou's article "A Great Film Company Is Rising", the department where he interned at the company was the data analysis department. He found that A24's control of movies has achieved data-based decision-making: by mining and analyzing the click-through rate of advertising on various platforms, it can help the marketing department allocate advertising budget reasonably; Before the non-theatrical release, the best launch time can be analyzed through data.
The case that uses data decision-making most vividly is the "Moonlight Boy" that gathers many niche elements. At first, even A24 itself was not too optimistic about the film with too many unpopular elements, and at first, they only arranged a few theater screenings, but after analyzing attendance and social media word-of-mouth, the data department discovered the potential of the film. Since then, the screening department has increased the film's scheduling efforts in New York and Los Angeles, and the publicity department has quickly followed. Such a decision is precisely to establish a reputation among art film lovers and niche groups in New York and Los Angeles, and then rely on them to spread the reputation of the film to the ears of ordinary audiences, resulting in a greater movie-watching boom. As a result of such a quick response, the total global box office of "Moonlight Boy" exceeded $65 million, and it won the favor of the Oscars as a dark horse.
A still from "Moonlight Boy".
In addition, distinctive online marketing and film campaigns are also the secret of A24's success. Compared with the high-ranking large film companies, A24 itself started as a marketing and distribution, and there is no distance between it and netizens. Like their initial efforts for Spring Break, they often design events for the film's promotion that are close to young people's preferences, both online and offline. They have opened special social accounts for many movie characters, and there are special people to operate them, so that netizens can truly empathize with the characters. In addition, in order to make the audience feel immersed, A24 often organizes characteristic open-air screenings. For example, they would screen "Moonlight Boy" near an alley called "Moonway," "Lobster" with forest scenes near the woods, and "Miss Bird" in Sacramento, the birthplace of the protagonist.
Ten years ago, A24 began to turn around in the era of blockbusters, starting to make friends with content-hungry independent filmmakers and audiences hungry for good content. Now, when "Instantaneous Universe" has won hundreds of millions of dollars at the global box office as a low-cost literary film, and when A24 domineeringly pocketed nine Oscars, people are shocked that the influence of this small company has long gone out of that mysterious office. According to statistics from entertainment statistics website The Numbers, A24's total box office in 2022 exceeded $110 million, and as a film distributor, its market share ranks seventh in the United States, second only to the six movie giants. Seeing this result, people can finally sigh with relief: A24 took those "weird" friends and entered the mainstream vision, writing a happy ending for the niche stories they created with their own hands.
Published in the 1090th issue of China Newsweek magazine on May 1, 2023
Magazine Title: A24: A Niche Triumph
Reporter: Qiu Guangyu