A24 on Top: With Bigger Budgets, Better Box Office and Splashy IP, Is it Finally Time to Sell? — SkimNews
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- Elden Ring is getting a $200 million movie adaptation from A24 — its biggest swing to date — starring Kit Connor and directed by Alex Garland, with production now wrapped.
- A24 is on course for its most profitable year ever, clearing $500 million at the domestic box office for the first time on "Backrooms" ($400 million worldwide against a $10 million budget, its highest-grossing film), "You Can See Everything" ($64 million) and "The Drama" ($134 million globally); over the summer it outgrossed Warner Bros. and Paramount in market share.
- A24's TV division followed HBO's "Euphoria" with Peacock's "Crystal Lake," HBO's "Neighbors" and Apple TV's "Margot's Got Money Troubles," and the studio is on course to finish as the most nominated at the Oscars.
- Thrive Capital's mid-2024 round, backed by Josh Kushner, valued A24 at $3.5 billion — a figure three sources at rival companies call out of line with market realities — while founders David Fenkel and Daniel Katz have turned down a host of equity offers and kept creative control tight, despite past flirtations with buyers including Apple and Sony.
- Eddington and "The Smashing Machine," each with $50 million budgets, were rejected at the box office, joining "How to Make a Killing" ($21 million against a $15 million budget), "The Death of Robin Hood" ($9.8 million against $20 million) and "Misty Green" ($160,000 against $5 million) — and Chapman University's Travis Knox says such results expose a brand built on two quadrants, since at $100 million-plus budgets "you can't ignore Oklahoma and Indiana."
- David Fenkel and Daniel Katz have spent the past year flying around the globe looking for "potential partners" to build A24's foreign "ports" with local-language teams, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report, even as the studio sells overseas rights to regional distributors and forgoes more than $200 million on "Backrooms" internationally.
- Travis Knox says A24's brand — its power to bring young audiences into theaters and onto TV — is the studio's greatest asset and the one an acquirer would gut: an Amazon purchase, he says, "would automatically alienate the audience." Other saleable assets include New York's Cherry Lane Theatre and a controversial $75 million Google DeepMind investment in AI tools for filmmakers.
Why it matters: For founders David Fenkel and Daniel Katz, the $3.5 billion Thrive Capital valuation and a record domestic year mark the high-water mark for monetizing. But the brand loyalty behind A24's $400 million "Backrooms" hit is the asset an acquirer would destroy — Knox says an Amazon deal would "automatically alienate" the audience.
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