How Upstart Distributor A24 Is Making Indie Films Exciting Again

An upstart distributor is making indie films exciting again.

- Adam Doster

Ava was beautiful and enjoyed tentative conversations about life and love. When curious brogrammers ran across her Tinder profile at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin last year, they swiped right with gusto. “What makes you human?” she would text, before instructing her suitor to click through to her Instagram feed, which included a video hyping Ex Machina, a chic and heady science-fiction thriller directed by Alex Garland, along with convenient details about the movie’s American debut, at the festival later that weekend.

The men had been catfished. Ava was a bot, designed by Ex Machina’s New York - based distributor, A24, using a photo of the film’s lead, Alicia Vikander. The guerrilla campaign, which took just a month to plan, barely dented the film’s marketing budget but garnered global headlines. After an enthusiastic reception in Austin, Ex Machina opened in limited release and ultimately took in more than $25 million domestically—not bad for a $15 million production with no bankable stars.

In an industry where creative courage is increasingly rare, A24 has made this sort of boldness a hallmark. Taking on about 18 to 20 films annually, the four-year-old indie distributor has earned a reputation for putting out unconventional fare that appeals to literate and artistically adventurous people in their twenties and thirties, whom major studios generally ignore, and employing savvy digital marketing and shrewd release strategies to reach them.