A24's Empire of Auteurs

Summary

Zoe Beyer, A24’s creative director, started out as the voice of its freewheeling social-media feeds. She now introduces its podcast, which borrows the format of Interview magazine: two artists, no intermediary. When she realized how intensely moviegoers felt about A24—acolytes were tattooing its logo on their bodies—she and a colleague proposed making branded merchandise. A test run of sweatshirts emblazoned with “A TWENTY-FOUR,” to clarify the pronunciation, sold out, confirming a hunger for more. Today, for a monthly fee, roughly a hundred thousand “AAA24 members” get first dibs on A24 products, free film tickets, and access to special events, which attendees inevitably post about online. The program is far from a profit center, but it generates highly effective advertising. An executive called the members “evangelicals for the movies.”A24’s founding employees have largely stuck around, and partnerships with talent tend to be lasting, too: when the company backs a movie or a series—it also has a TV division—the implicit intent is to keep working with the creator. Executives are in constant conversation with their roster, and pride themselves on the intimacy of the operation. Decisions on new filmmakers are made democratically by a core group: Katz, Fenkel, Sacco, and Nicolette Aizenberg, the head of distribution. (Aizenberg is another veteran: in 2012, she and Sacco celebrated their first film festival together with tequila shots.) Katz, who has dark hair and narrow features, leads by asking questions; he responds to assessments he approves of with an emphatic “Correct!” Fenkel, taller and broader, is affably punctilious. He’s transparent in a business of bullshitters.Discussions about green-lighting a project, Sacco told me, have “a creative component” and “an economic component.” When introducing prospects that his team is eager to cultivate, he offers the group a précis. The moment a deal is made, staffers in the marketing division read the script and begin str...