A24 is now an established film distributor that started as a small indie film studio in New York. The company’s angle on meme culture and arthouse films adapted well to social media and helped it garner the reputation of a production company that made deep, creative films but still had a sense of humor. And when you’re known for films like Everything Everywhere All At Once, Moonlight, and Swiss Army Man, you’ve earned that reputation. A24 has maintained steady popularity and a consistent fanbase well enough to prove that it deserves its place in the world of film’s heavy hitters.

But A24 has reached a turning point in its existence. Since 2012, the hip studio has cultivated its position as an underdog. The jokes it made on Twitter and the merch it sold online lasted just long enough before they got cheesy, and then they disappeared. Now it seems A24 has reached a point in its life where the studio itself might have gotten a bit cheesy. Their unique style has become a stereotype, and outsiders have begun to parody the A24 culture. It even launched a membership program this year, which might come off as elitist to its hipster demographic.

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The hip indie film house has outgrown its adolescent phase and now must choose whether to turn its style into a mass-producible aesthetic or separate itself from its past and become what it’s always hated: a big successful film company.

A24’s Image Is Everything

     A24

Quite simply, A24 spent a long time creating this reputation as a hip, alternative film studio. And now it might go the way of cool clothing brands like Supreme or Bored Ape. All of us might completely buy into the brand until, one day, we all wake up at the same time, realizing the whole thing was just a phase. But A24 isn’t some fashion or internet stock company.

Although it sells culture, films tend to have a greater, more lengthy impact on people’s lives than shoes or NFTs. Cult films and TV shows can stay popular for decades. People are still talking about Firefly, after all. And A24 has a cult of its own. Those who enjoy the film studio’s work are still firmly in its camp. That popularity won’t just disappear.

But the way the studio became so popular in the first place was through its image. Not all those who like A24 do so because they want to be cool, but part of A24’s brand is that they are the “cool” film studio. There’s a measure of anti-style in the company that is, in itself, a style that can only remain in vogue for so long.

When the pandemic began, it stopped all culture, dead. But when culture started back up again, everything sort of reset. Now there was nothing new. Everything that had existed before the pandemic was intrinsically added to this new status quo of the post-pandemic world. A24 could no longer disrupt the established film culture because it was part of that establishment. And this being part of the public consciousness is bad for A24’s business. What will they do now that they’re not the rebel or the outsider? They will still make cool arthouse films, but will some stock be lost in the eyes of fans?

What Can A24 Do Now That It’s Mainstream?

Being part of the status quo isn’t all bad for A24. Now everyone knows where to go for kitschy arthouse and indie films. They’ve created a library of eclectic and nuanced movies that truly do set them apart from any other film company, and it allows them to fill a void in the market that before was taken up by dozens of tiny production companies.

So, it’s not like A24 is just going to disappear now that it’s popular. There’s just no surprise left in it for their audience. And if they want to continue the growth trend they had pre-pandemic, they may have to change their strategy.

If A24 continues to act as if nothing’s changed in the public mind, they may grow stale and become an even bigger parody of themselves than they already are. There is a need to pivot. Many culturally valuable things in this position often capitalize on the joke, trying to get out in front of it. Though, this typically works best if you produce comedy.

Adult Swim does this all the time, and they’re happy with it. But their biggest demographic is also teenage boys. A24 could essentially freeze their style into a re-creatable, formulaic aesthetic. It will take some individuality from what A24 makes, but the public will probably do this if they don’t.

As we said, it’s not likely that the studio will collapse now that everyone has learned to make fun of it, but its role in the culture will change in the eyes of its audience. Perhaps A24’s future is just as equally indie and cool, just with less of a mania surrounding their releases. Because regardless of what people might say, A24 still produces objectively good movies worthy of critical and widespread praise.