With ‘Civil War,’ A24 Joins the Blockbuster Front Lines
What happens when a beloved indie studio goes Hollywood?
When Everything Everywhere All at Once premiered in March 2022, it was hard to imagine that an action movie in which Michelle Yeoh fights a dude with a glorified butt plug sticking out of his ass would find itself competing at the Academy Awards. Fast-forward to the following March, though, and Everything Everywhere All at Once wound up winning seven Oscars, including five of the six major categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. The other big award of the night—Best Actor—ended up going to Brendan Fraser for his performance in A24’s The Whale. In the process, history was made at the Academy Awards: For the first time ever, one studio managed to win all six major categories. True to form, the independent studio A24 was winning everything all at once.
Since its founding in 2012, A24 has consistently been on the upswing. The company’s success doesn’t come down to one thing, but a variety of factors: the championing of up-and-coming auteurs (Ari Aster, Greta Gerwig, Robert Eggers, the directorial duo known as the Daniels), which has established the studio as a reliable tastemaker; the execution of clever, online-driven marketing campaigns; the fostering of an almost cultlike devotion from certain cinephiles, including card-carrying members of a subscription service that offers limited-edition merch and an in-house zine. A24’s commercial prospects have also trended in the right direction: Four of the studio’s 10 highest-grossing films (Everything Everywhere All at Once, Talk to Me, The Whale, The Iron Claw) were released in the past two years.
But the very qualities that have made A24 a beloved art-house commodity—a studio that punches above its weight by bucking against the trend of Hollywood’s chase for sequels, remakes, and would-be franchises—are now in question. In 2022, A24 raised $225 million from investors, including the private equity firm Stripes LLC, which grew the company’s valuation to $2.5 billion. It isn’t inherently bad for an indie studio to secure financial backing, but the fear is that outside investment—and the expectation of growth that comes with it—could interfere with what made A24 so special in the first place. Those concerns appeared to be realized in October when The Wrap reported that A24 would be seeking out “action and big IP projects” to expand its commercial footprint.
While a source close to A24 explained to The Wrap that the studio would be “doing more,” rather than abandoning the art-house sensibilities that put it on the map, there is a long and storied history of private equity ruining American companies. (Sadly, it’s especially prominent in media.) At the same time, A24 has earned plenty of goodwill since its inception—we might as well see what the future of the studio looks like before passing judgment. Thankfully, this weekend gives us an early glimpse at the types of projects A24 could be pursuing. Folks, it’s time to gear up for Civil War.
Hailing from writer-director Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation) and told from the perspective of a group of journalists, Civil War imagines an increasingly divided America as it enters a second Civil War. Setting aside how unlikely it is that California and Texas would join forces in a separatist movement, Civil War carries plenty of intrigue. Garland has already claimed that it’ll be the last movie he directs after falling out of love with filmmaking—if he sticks to his word, at least he’s going out on a high note. Then there’s the fact that Civil War is coming out in a fraught election year after one candidate previously fanned the flames of an insurrection; the think pieces write themselves. Civil War will also have fascinating implications for A24: With a reported budget of $50 million, it’s the most expensive film from the studio to date.
Granted, $50 million is chump change compared to the price tags for most blockbusters from major studios: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, for instance, cost nearly six times as much. But that also means the path to commercial viability is far less arduous for Civil War. Early projections have the movie opening with $21 million at the domestic box office, which would break another record for A24. (Right now, the company’s biggest domestic opening is Hereditary, which made $13.6 million in its first weekend.) These are incremental steps, to be sure, but they point to A24’s new strategy, which will potentially revive a dying Hollywood art form: the mid-budget movie.
As major studios continue making massive tentpoles—higher budgets and higher risk for higher returns—midsize movies have largely disappeared from the theatrical landscape, instead finding a home in the world of streaming. (Case in point: Rian Johnson’s Knives Out was a recent mid-budget success story when it was released by Lionsgate in 2019; the rights to its sequels were subsequently acquired by Netflix.) Mid-budget films rarely have the financial ceiling of something like Dune, but they also have a safer floor. And if these are the kinds of projects A24 will be striving for, the company wouldn’t just be scaling up: It’d be filling a void.
To that end, in the same week that A24 released the first trailer for Civil War back in December, news broke about two movies that fit right into the studio’s new wheelhouse. After striking out in the world of superheroes, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is set to play MMA fighter Mark Kerr in the solo directorial debut from Benny Safdie. (If this means the Safdie brothers have broken up for good, Uncut Gems—another A24 joint—is one hell of a way to go out.) What’s more, legendary video game designer Hideo Kojima announced that A24 would be turning Death Stranding into a live-action film. Just like that, A24 has lined up another action-oriented project—the MMA biopic—and is adapting IP from one of gaming’s most revered auteurs.
A decade from now, perhaps we’ll look back at Civil War as the turning point for A24—for better or worse. In any case, it might be only a matter of time before an A24 movie crosses $100 million at the domestic box office for the first time, or before one of its productions has a nine-figure budget. Of course, even for a studio that’s built a stellar reputation, success is far from a guarantee. But if the new-look A24 manages to bridge the gap between the homogeneous blockbusters that dominate multiplexes and the mid-budget genre fare that’s been relegated to streaming, it’ll be a net positive for anyone who cares about the theatrical experience. Hopefully, as A24 keeps expanding, the company will stick to its ethos: There has to be a better way.
