A24 is scaling again its documentary division, shedding 5 staff from its nonfiction department, IndieWire has discovered. It’s probably the signal of a shift away from documentary movies on the indie distributor.
A24 in recent times has backed docs which were or might be launched theatrically by A24 itself, just like the upcoming “André Is an Fool,” which made its premiere at Sundance 2025, or final 12 months’s “Look Into My Eyes.” Different current A24 docs embody some licensed movies for streaming, together with “The Final of the Sea Girls,” the two-part Steve Martin documentary “Steve!,” and different bio-docs like “Amy,” “Val,” “Stephen Curry: Underrated,” and “The Deepest Breath.”
Nicole Stott, who leads the division, is remaining at A24, as is Emily Osborne, the pinnacle of documentary manufacturing. They’ll keep on to work on different documentary tasks already within the works, together with Victor Kossakovsky’s doc “Architecton” about concrete, which first premiered at Berlin in 2024. There’s additionally a documentary about wrestling from the Philippou brothers (“Speak to Me”) referred to as “Deathmatch,” nonetheless in manufacturing.
A24 isn’t ruling out working with different filmmakers on documentary tasks, however a supply indicated the struggling documentary enterprise has made it too difficult to help a complete division.
It’s one other blow for the without end up-and-down documentary market, which in recent times has leaned closely towards celebrity-driven biographical movies, music movies, and true crime. Even for these movies, discovering success within the theatrical house has been few and much between.
A24 although isn’t with out some deeper pockets, because it has a number of bold movies enjoying at Cannes, and simply yesterday introduced it could a movie adaptation of the acclaimed online game “Elden Ring,” an enormous piece of fantasy IP that doubtless requires a hefty visible results price range to do it justice. Alex Garland, who labored with A24 as a filmmaker on movies together with “Warfare” and “Civil Battle,” is about to direct.
Selection first reported the information of the layoffs.