A24

A24 has made two splashy international hires in the shape of BBC executives Rose Garnett and Piers Wenger who will join the ambitious U.S. distributor and producer to oversee their growing international film and TV slate. Wenger is currently Director of BBC Drama, where he has overseen series including I May Destroy You, Bodyguard, A Very English Scandal, His Dark Materials, Normal People and Small Axe (both in close collaboration with Garnett). Previously he was Head of Drama at Channel 4 where he commissioned Humans, National Treasure, Southcliffe and T he End of The F**cking World. Garnett currently serves as Director of BBC Film where she has overseen a slate of titles including The Power of The Dog , Souvenir 1 and 2, The Nest , and Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always . Prior to that, she was at Film4 where she shepherded award-winners The Favourite, Room, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri and American Honey. Based in London, the … [Read more...] about A24 Lures BBC Film Boss Rose Garnett & BBC Drama Director Piers Wenger In Splashy International Hires

Neon , the independent film distributor founded by Tom Quinn and Tim League and which broke through at the 2020 Oscars with Parasite , the first foreign-language title to win Best Picture, is looking to be sold, Deadline has confirmed from sources. The company is hoping to branch out more into television and streaming, and bulk up its production pipeline. The fact that A24 notched a $225 million equity investment in March provides hope that some or all of Neon’s businesses could be sold. Reports are that A24 at that time was valued at $2.5 billion. It’s unclear at this time what Neon would be worth. The distributor has had a recent streak of distributing those movies winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, starting with 2019’s Parasite from Bong Joon Ho. It continued with Julia Ducournau’s Titane and this year’s comedic crowdpleaser Triangle of Sadness from Ruben Ostlund. Neon turned Parasite into one of the top-grossing foreign films in … [Read more...] about Neon Exploring Sale As It Taps Merchant Bank Raine

4th Update/Writethru, Sunday AM after Saturday AM post : It’s not a good weekend for franchises, specifically old dusty ones like the sixth Terminator movie, Terminator: Dark Fate , which is seeing an apocalyptic future at the weekend domestic box office with $29M, per Paramount (rivals see it lower ,in the high $28M range). That’s a terrible result for a planned Paramount/Skydance Media/Fox tentpole that reportedly cost $185M (some even say it was $196M). Saturday was estimated around $11M, +4% from Friday+previews’ $10.6M, but still nothing to celebrate. More bad news: Dark Fate is the lowest No. 1 opening for the first weekend of November since 2013’s Ender’s Game, which debuted to $27M (final domestic B.O. $61.7M). And sorry, Paramount and Skydance, but this is your second back-to-back bomb, following the $138M Will Smith pic Gemini Man, which is set to lose $80M after a $160M global B.O. All of this Terminator blues has dragged down weekend … [Read more...] about How ‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ Conked Out With $29M & Why ‘The Irishman’ Is A Strategic Opportunity – Sunday Box Office

There are violent crimes committed in A24’s disappointing new slasher, Bodies Bodies Bodies , including a machete to the neck and a tumble down the stairs like something out of HBO’s The Staircase . But none of this bloodletting is as grievous as the crime committed by the movie itself, which takes a pair of actresses that gave two of the funnier comic turns in recent memory — Rachel Sennott of Shiva Baby and Maria Bakalova of Borat Subsequent Moviefilm — and whittles almost all of their magic down to nothing. By the end of the movie, the snap and crackle of their wit has somehow been deadened to a pile of ash. All that’s left are the bones of a movie that’s going through an identity crisis, and a good idea gone to waste. Bodies Bodies Bodies , directed Halina Reijn, takes a handful of familiar tropes — a friend getaway (replace the cabin in the woods with the richest friend’s empty house), a drinking game gone wrong, a storm that knocks the power out, … [Read more...] about ‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’ Is a Crime Against Slasher Flicks

A New Zealand-based platform where fans track, review and share lists of movies old and new is an increasingly influential marketing tool for specialty film with budgets tight and audiences harder to reach. Letterboxd , founded as a passion project by Auckland tech entrepreneurs Matthew Buchanan and Karl von Randow just over a decade ago, recently passed 6.5 million members, with 40-50% in North America followed by the U.K., Europe and breakout markets including Brazil, India, Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines. It has 4.4 million monthly visitors and 800 million monthly page views. Since launch, users have logged a whopping 1 billion films they’ve seen, put 300 million films on watchlists and posted 76.8 million reviews. Average time spent per visitor per month across web and app is about 40 minutes. Letterboxd has been profitable since 2019, which is “source of immense pride,” Buchanan tells Deadline. The founders early on declined venture capital backing, … [Read more...] about The Letterboxd Story: A Site For Film Lovers & Film Listers Giving Indie Distributors A Hand – Specialty Preview

UPDATED with memo from MRC leaders: Eldridge and MRC said today that they have completed the separation of combined media assets. MRC, led by founders and co-CEOs Modi Wiczyk and Asif Satchu , will retain and control its existing operations as the leading independent studio, with three divisions: Film, Television and Non-Fiction. MRC also will retain its stakes in Civic Center Media and T-Street. Read the internal memo from Wiczyk and Satchu below Eldridge will retain dick clark productions and investments in South by Southwest, A24, Fulwell 73, Sugar 23 and Luminate, as well as the Penske Media Corporation — which includes Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Billboard, Rolling Stone, Vibe, Music Business Worldwide, Life is Beautiful. Eldridge also will remain as a significant minority shareholder in MRC. “When we combined forces in 2018, we set out to accomplish an ambitious set of objectives. We are immensely proud of our team’s resulting success. The … [Read more...] about Eldridge & MRC Separate Their Combined Media Assets