The assumed “rivalry” between A24 and Neon has finally been dispelled — and it’s actually Netflix that Neon counts as their “biggest competitor” for acquisition titles.
Neon founder and CEO Tom Quinn told Variety that his studio tried to purchase recent Netflix hits such as Richard Linklater’s “Hit Man,” Todd Haynes’ “May December,” and Chloe Domont’s Sundance breakout “Fair Play.” In turn, Netflix previously tried to lock down “I, Tonya” and “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” which were both award-winning Neon releases.
Quinn detailed how it was Netflix, and not fellow indie studio A24, that turned out to be the main competition.
“The industry thinks there’s a rivalry [between Neon and A24], and there’s not,” Quinn said. “It’s good headlines. I thought they might be our biggest competitor. But as it turns out, our biggest competitor has been Netflix. They desperately tried to beat us to buy ‘I, Tonya’ and ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire,’ and we ended up losing out to them on ‘Hit Man,’ ‘May December,’ and ‘Fair Play.’ There’s a slew of movies where I’m the second-highest bidder [to Netflix].”
There was one recent film, though, that A24 did woo away from Neon: Brady Corbet’s Oscar-winning “The Brutalist.” While “The Brutalist” won Best Actor for Adrien Brody (as well as Best Original Score for Daniel Blumberg and Best Cinematography for Lol Crawley), Neon’s “Anora” took the top title of Best Picture, along with Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing for Sean Baker, and Best Actress for Mikey Madison.
Quinn deemed “The Brutalist” a “stone cold masterpiece.” As Variety reported, writer/director Corbet opted to go with A24 in part because the studio would theatrically exhibit the film in 70 mm, something that Quinn was unsure about at Neon.
“I just thought, ‘Brady, you’ve spent eight years making this. Let’s make sure that you have enough time to build every theater 70 millimeter prints,’” Quinn said. “‘Let’s not sacrifice anything. And I feel that we’re going to be rushed.’ … As much as it hurt to say goodbye, I think Brady made the right decision. He wanted to go this year.”
Quinn added of his approach to guiding Neon, “We follow the beat of our own drum. The idea of pandering to the campaign as opposed to being who you are as a film is a big, stark difference. We never play to the campaign. We always play to the film, filmmaker and audience — in that order. We’re in a better position to be very intentional about who we want to work with. We have a really clear idea of who we are and what we want to do in an industry that can be quite flawed and focused on the trend of the day, and approaches every film as a one size fits all.”
Quinn previously told The Hollywood Reporter that Neon and A24 “exchange a lot of directors” and are often both in discussions for the same films.
“We pick up movies that they walked away from, and vice versa, but we’re not the same,” Quinn said in 2024. “Here’s a stark difference: In their first seven years, they released three foreign-language films and three documentaries. We’ve released 64 — 32 foreign-language films and 32 documentaries. We are very different, but are very much on the same trajectory. They won best picture, and we won best picture. But I don’t understand their business and their valuations. I’m sure most of the industry doesn’t either, but more power to them.”
