By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

A24 OPENS DOORS FOR FILM DISTRIBUTION, FINANCE AND PRODUCTION

Posted Monday, August 20th, 2012 - 2 Comments »
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Daniel Katz, David Fenkel, John Hodges launch Company 

NEW YORK, NY (August 20, 2012) — Daniel Katz, David Fenkel and John Hodges today announced the formation of A24, a New York-based film company focused on distribution, financing and production. A24 will acquire finished films, and also finance and produce its own content.  The company plans to distribute eight to ten titles per year, several of which will have wide theatrical releases.

Commented Katz, Fenkel, and Hodges: “We see an exciting opportunity right now for movies in the domestic space especially given all the new ways to target moviegoers and the changes that are happening in the marketplace. We are looking forward to working with great storytellers to bring their films to audiences.”

Katz led the film finance group at Guggenheim Partners where he participated in over $500 million of film, TV and digital financing transactions, including THE SOCIAL NETWORK, ZOMBIELAND, the TWILIGHT franchise and TENDERNESS.

Fenkel was formerly President and Partner of NYC-based Oscilloscope Laboratories, Adam Yauch’s film distribution and production company.  Fenkel and Yauch co-founded the company in 2008, and Fenkel maintained oversight of all aspects of the company including theatrical, in-house DVD, and direct digital distribution, acquisitions, marketing, and operations.  In its first four years, Oscilloscope’s films received six Oscar nominations.  Fenkel spearheaded releases for Lynne Ramsay’s Golden Globe–nominated WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN starring Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, and Ezra Miller, Oren Moverman’s Oscar-nominated THE MESSENGER starring Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson and Samantha Morton and Kelly Reichardt’s WENDY & LUCY, both starring Michelle Williams.

Hodges previously served as Head of Production & Development at Big Beach Films (LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, SUNSHINE CLEANING, AWAY WE GO, OUR IDIOT BROTHER).  Hodges executive produced the Jesse Peretz’s OUR IDIOT BROTHER starring Paul Rudd and Elizabeth Banks; and Colin Trevorrow’s SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED starring Aubrey Plaza and Jake M. Johnson.  He also produced the just completed Jordan Vogt-Roberts TOY’S HOUSE, based on Chris Gulletta’s Black List script. Prior to joining Big Beach, Hodges was a Production Executive at Lorne Michaels and John Goldwyn’s Paramount-based production company, and previously was an Acquisitions Executive at both Focus Features and USA Films.

A24 headquarters will be in NYC.

Facebook.com/A24Films

A24Films.com

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Posted in Movie City News, Press Releases | 2 Comments »

2 Responses to “A24 OPENS DOORS FOR FILM DISTRIBUTION, FINANCE AND PRODUCTION”

  1. Paul Friedman says:
    July 24, 2013 at 12:30 pm

    TO: Daniel Katz, David Fenkel and John Hodges
    at A24

    Dear Mr. Kata, Fenkel and Hodges,

    I am aware that A24 often produces its own content. Below, I seek your company’s interest in producing my spec comedy “MOB CAMP”.

    “MOB CAMP”
    – A coming-of-age satirical black comedy –

    LOGLINE: Rebellious teens of Mafia dons are packed off to ‘Mob Camp’ to learn the tools-of-the-trade, but the choice of camp-location has dislodged the brutal Spanish-Harlem Mafia: Big Mistakesy!

    ****

    A Teensy-Weensy More Story: The young hero of our story, never interested in the ‘family business’, wants to be a writer. His first book, a sex manual for teenagers titled: “DOING IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME” is a New York Times Best Seller! — Near the end of camp training, our young hero’s father (a Mafia don) is seriously wounded and the youngster returns home to destroy his father’s enemies.

    Nothing wrong with that, but the kid has fallen in love with the daughter of his father’s most dreaded enemy, a don of the ruthless Spanish Mafia!

    May I send you a copy of Mob Camp?

    Paul L. Friedman
    Adjunct Professor, USC Cinema
    Screenwriting Div.
    friedmac3@gmail.com
    310-433-3436 Cell

  2. Paul Friedman says:
    July 24, 2013 at 12:31 pm

    TO: Daniel Katz, David Fenkel and John Hodges
    at A24

    Dear Mr. Kata, Fenkel and Hodges,

    I am aware that A24 often produces its own content. Below, I seek your company’s interest in producing my spec comedy “MOB CAMP”.

    “MOB CAMP”
    – A coming-of-age satirical black comedy –

    LOGLINE: Rebellious teens of Mafia dons are packed off to ‘Mob Camp’ to learn the tools-of-the-trade, but the choice of camp-location has dislodged the brutal Spanish-Harlem Mafia: Big Mistakesy!

    ****

    A Teensy-Weensy More Story: The young hero of our story, never interested in the ‘family business’, wants to be a writer. His first book, a sex manual for teenagers titled: “DOING IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME” is a New York Times Best Seller! — Near the end of camp training, our young hero’s father (a Mafia don) is seriously wounded and the youngster returns home to destroy his father’s enemies.

    Nothing wrong with that, but the kid has fallen in love with the daughter of his father’s most dreaded enemy — a don of the ruthless Spanish Mafia!

    May I send you a copy of Mob Camp?

    Paul L. Friedman
    Adjunct Professor
    USC Cinema – Screenwriting Div.
    friedmac3@gmail.com
    310-433-3436 Cell

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon