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00:00I just want to go through some history. So, he started at Samuel Goldwyn Films, was a VP there,
00:18and moved on to Magnolia Pictures, where he championed Super Size Me, Man on the Wire,
00:28Food Inc., then Radius, that he formed with a great Harvey Weinstein. Which, by the way,
00:38I got to tell you, before there were ever any problems with Harvey Weinstein, he was
00:41complaining about him pretty much every day. And he blew up our perception of what a small
00:49company could do by releasing the movie Snowpiercer. And that takes us to 2017.
00:57And that's the last thing that's going to drop. So, can you just talk to us a little bit about the
01:06creation of Neon, how you made it happen, and actually mostly what the thesis was behind it,
01:13because I feel like people want to, and we're talking to people that all want to start companies,
01:18and everybody wants to start a company. No one really realizes how complicated it is to start
01:22a company. But what was your thesis behind it? And what were the first two years like? And how
01:31difficult are they to actually end up with a trailer like that?
01:35A couple things. So, I've been doing this for 30 years, which feels like it's gone by so quickly.
01:47You know, I counted up the number of movies that I've worked on, and it's something over 400. So,
01:52at some point, it's hard to sort of sit down and write the story about how we got here. But
02:00there are two things that stand out to me. And I worked at four companies. And I got to work with,
02:05you know, idiosyncratic founders, leaders, Sam Goldwyn, Mark Cuban, Harvey Weinstein. And,
02:12you know, in those environments, it really fostered entrepreneurship. And I really got to do what I
02:17wanted to do. You know, Goldwyn was a great example of, I cataloged all of Sam Goldwyn's dad's files.
02:24I ran the projection booth. I was a manager in development, production and acquisitions. And so,
02:35I really got to try to figure out what I wanted to do. And seven and a half years there sort of gave
02:41me a pathway to figure out, like, I think I'd like to have more control over the movies that we buy
02:46in service of how they're marketed and publicized. And that led me to Magnolia,
02:52where Mark Cuban essentially gave me full reign to go buy 40 movies a year. And, and I really,
02:59you know, by doing got to learn. And it was a great company. It's still a great company.
03:04No censorship. It was just within a financial model. Um, and you know, it was, we all as
03:11executives at that company being so small, we're cross-trained. We did our own model. We did our
03:16own, our own negotiating and we did our own pitching. And, and so really lucky to be at those
03:25two companies to get here. But when I was at Magnolia, a good friend of mine and business,
03:30subsequent business partner, Jason Genego, he sat me down one day and he said, don't, don't you think
03:36we're kind of playing amateur ball? You know, the sports analogy. He said, wouldn't you like to
03:40figure out what it's like to go pro? Do you have what it takes to go farther? And that always stuck
03:46out in my mind. I was like, I think I do. And so he convinced me to leave Magnolia and let's start
03:52our own company. And that was Radius at, uh, the Weinstein company, which was a little label, um, a
04:00little bookie, uh, boutique label at a larger company, which embraced VOD, but also embraced
04:06art film. And that was the stepping stone to truly becoming an entrepreneur, starting a label from
04:12the ground up. And the big shift from Radius to Neon was the belief that I finally had the courage
04:20and know how to go out on my own. And there's a big difference there. You know, being entrepreneurial
04:27is not being an entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur is that you got to pay the bills, that you got to
04:33raise the money and do all the other stuff that you did at those previous jobs. And I give my wife
04:38a lot of credit. You know, she started this incredible store, uh, called Stuart and Wright in
04:43Brooklyn. And so she was the first entrepreneur in our family. And she was in that store every weekend,
04:49making sure the lights were on. She was doing all the buying, all the creative. And, you know,
04:54I learned from watching her what it was going to take and what you have to commit to in order to
05:00run a business. And foolishly, I thought I could do it. Um, and so with great conviction left the
05:09Weinstein company with Jason Ginego to go raise the money for what I thought would be a company that
05:15would right the wrongs of the previous companies that I'd worked at, better business practices. And we
05:21would only work on films that we could sell with a straight face, that we could truly believe in
05:25at a hundred percent with some very, and I'd worked at companies that were collapsing the theatrical
05:30window that embraced VOD. And I wanted to get back to what I thought was basics, the power of cinema.
05:37And I thought, well, it's going to take a month or two months to raise the money. Like this is an
05:44obvious good idea. I've only generated, you know, bottom line profit for every company I've worked at
05:49and cut to two years later. Uh, it took me that long to raise the money. And everybody here should
05:56know that without Rogue. Oh my God. I, we, Neon would not be here today. Rogue found our first
06:02investor, which is Jackie Chan's manager, SR Media. It was worse than that, but yeah. But it was,
06:09it was the money, you know, and, and the business plan went through four iterations. Um, I lost my
06:14business partner, Jason Ginego. We decided to part ways and he was right. He didn't want to be in
06:19distribution anymore. He thought it was too hard and credit to him. He made the right choice. And
06:23so I kept with it. And, uh, uh, without Rogue and that first $15 million, I don't know that we'd be
06:32up and running. And then the transition from this gorgeous, beautiful idea that you 100% believe in
06:38having raised the money, then the hard work starts. So to your, to your question, what was the first
06:43two years like? Six people inside of a WeWork space, you know, it was like a, basically like a
06:51chef on a cook line. We were this highly functioning amoeba and we just got really lucky because we
06:57clearly knew who we were. Um, the folks that I was working with, I'd worked with at Radius and some
07:03Dan O'Meara's here. We'd worked together, uh, uh, in, in multiple iterations before that and gave me a
07:10comfort and, and a certain amount of synergy that, that I think is super important for any startup.
07:15Um, but the movies were great. The movies were fantastic. And, uh, we brought a whole host of
07:22filmmakers along with us that we'd worked with over the course of, you know, the, the previous two
07:27decades. One of them was Bong Joon-ho, uh, Laura Poitras. And then we found this movie, Ingrid Goes West
07:34at Sundance, which CAA sold us. And that's where we really honed our skills as marketers and
07:40distributors. And someone took special notice of that movie and it was Margot Robbie. And what we
07:46did on that film, the film only grossed $3 million, but it was still, I think it flexed more and it
07:53looked bigger than it was. And when we came to Toronto that year to buy, we were going to look at
08:00Itania and we were, I think at that point, maybe 15 people and we had just enough money to buy
08:07Itania. Cause you're buying it with the equity of your, in your company at that point in time.
08:12Everything, all of our equity was going into the company. And so super risky, there's no room for
08:18error and you really only had one shot to get it right. And we were competing with Netflix at three
08:24times the offer and we plunked down $6 million to buy Itania. And that was sort of everything
08:30changed after that. And going into an Oscar campaign two weeks after buying the film and
08:36we really honed our chops and proved our, our place in the industry. And, you know, thanks
08:41to Rogue and...
08:43Oh my God.
08:44Well, and also to Margot and Craig, the director for, for believing in us that we could, we could
08:51do a better job than...
08:52And that, that actually changed for us, for like, for the sellers, for the filmmakers,
08:58for, for the actors, because it's, at that point it felt like, well, you know, we're all
09:04going to Netflix. It felt like you're all going to Netflix and you gave, you came in and you
09:09gave that hope. And Margot Robbie took a risk on herself, a gigantic risk on herself where
09:14she could have taken a much bigger deal, not have to worry about the theatrical success of
09:19the movie, but she believed in you. And I think that once that happened, filmmakers started
09:25looking at it, well, no, everyone tells us theatrical is dead, theatrical is not dead,
09:30and look at what you can do when you do it right.
09:31And the other thing is she knew who she was and we knew who we were. We knew what that
09:36film represented. It was sort of the anti-awards film. And we immediately knew, no, no, we're
09:42going to come out first piece of material you will see will be a Red Band trailer. And this
09:48is not that long ago, but it's a super traditional industry. And all the consultants were coming
09:53to us saying, you can't go out with a Red Band trailer. We're like, have you seen the
09:57movie? We're going to be the guilty pleasure, the true story, this crime thriller that happens
10:02to be something that at the end of the day, truly is about class and, and, you know, the
10:10way that we all participated, the way that we all sort of consumed this story about, you
10:17know, these two women who, who initially weren't, you know, you know, weren't really
10:22living or on opposite ends of the tracks, but, but the media had sort of pitted them against
10:29each other. And yes, of course, Tonya Harding did commit a crime, but there was something
10:33really valuable at the heart of that. And, and I love, I loved our campaign on that film.
10:38And I love the movie itself. And, and the success $30 million, three Oscar nominations,
10:44a win for best supporting, you know, it really was the thing that launched us.
10:49So, um, now you're, you know, you're six Palme d'Or wins in a row. Um, you're far removed
10:57from 2017. Uh, the business has changed drastically. Um, and, and this is like, not a negative question.
11:05I'm going to throw some negative ones and throw some positive ones and we'll, we'll, we'll
11:08figure our way through this. But, um, what, what assumptions about the business did you,
11:14did you have in 2017 that actually proved out to not be the correct ones?
11:19Well, I, I went into business thinking, oh, we're going to compete with A24. That's,
11:25that's going to be our biggest issue. And, and the reality is for the first six years,
11:29we didn't compete with A24. We were competing with Netflix. A lot of these movies that, you know,
11:34they also wanted Ingrid Goes West. And so I was very surprised at every turn to see them,
11:40you know, they wanted Portrait of a Lady on Fire. That was our biggest competitor. And we plopped
11:46down 1.6 million for this French language film for North America, which was sort of unheard of. But
11:52that was a, just a clear conviction that this was a once in a lifetime movie. And so, you know,
11:58those were big surprises. Um, the other surprises were that, you know, that we could go out on the
12:08open market and consistently find movies that were, were just miracles. You know, whether it was
12:15any of our six Palme d'Or winners, Anatomy of a Fall, Triangle of Sadness. But knowing full well,
12:22before we even opened that one of my favorite directors that I'd only seen her debut film,
12:27Raw, I was like, we have to work with Julia Ducarnot, that she's the future of cinema. Like,
12:32I knew it. And our head of production acquisitions and development, Jeff Deutschman, he also felt the
12:39same way. And so even before we were sort of officially up and running, we were pursuing Julia
12:46in anticipation that we're going to have to do her next film. I was too. I just failed. We were all
12:50doing it. Well, we went to Paris, we read her script for Tatin and, and we were like, what do you want?
12:56What do you want? And we offered it on the spot. And, you know, seeing the completion of that film,
13:01and then it's subsequently winning the Palme d'Or was kind of just, you know, none of that was the
13:07reason to do it. All of it was though a validation of, we really believe in the power of cinema.
13:13We believe in the power of creativity, of auteurs who, who are, you know, bold and visionary in doing
13:21films that, you know, might have a classic sort of framework or reference, but are doing something
13:26that you've never seen before. Well, you, you bring a brand identity and I, and I do think that
13:32anyone in this room, anyone outside of this room, anyone in the world, I think, maybe not all the
13:39world, but most of the world would, would know Neon as being a certain kind of bold, uncompromising
13:46cinema. And how important is that brand identity and independent film distribution has been for you
13:55and how difficult is it to maintain it while being commercially viable?
13:59It's the work that we do every day. The amount of discussions that happen inside of this company
14:04with a whole host of very super intelligent cinephiles that are committed to the work that
14:08authentically love the same things that the company stands for, which is why I think it works.
14:13But we painstakingly do not compromise that. And at the end of the day, if that's all we're left with
14:20in failure, then, then I think we can get to the next step that, that, that, that it is sustainable
14:26if you do not compromise that. And I think the commitment to that has attracted other filmmakers
14:32who want to be a part of that. Um, it doesn't mean that everything works, but it does mean that
14:37we believe it should. And, and at least we will attempt, um, to put out what I call the, you know,
14:43the perfect decalogue of films every year that if you like one of our films, I believe I can convince you
14:50to check out the other nine that year and maybe go all the way into our 125 film catalog.
14:55Uh, you, when you, when you speak about filmmakers and I mean, I think this is something that people
14:59are quite jealous about. I actually, in France, when, when I, I, when Mirabel, I'm sure is not here anymore,
15:06but when I would spend a long time with him, I, I was always amazed by the, the loyalty of
15:13filmmakers that they would just go back to the same producer. Even, even if they had a bad experience,
15:17there was always that loyalty in the U S not so much. I mean, a filmmaker will switch from Fox
15:22Searchlight and neon and they don't usually leave neon, which, which is what I want to talk about is
15:29really, how do you, how do you keep, how do you keep filmmakers loyal to you? I mean, there's, you,
15:35you release, you release their movies and that's great, but at the next day, they may be offered a
15:41lot more to go someplace else. And yet they seem to come back to you. You can't force loyalty, you earn
15:46it. And, and, and loyalty, you know, is, we want people to be happy wherever they work. And, you know,
15:53Sean Baker is someone that I think represents he's as much a fan of cinema as he is a purveyor and,
16:02and an auteur, you know, he, he supports the theatrical experience. He supports theaters.
16:08He does Q and A's for all these other filmmakers. He's ever present on social media, supporting his
16:13fellow filmmakers and films. And, and so we were already working with Sean as a fan of film without
16:20officially releasing any of his movies. And I think it's people like that, that are loyal to
16:26the ethos of cinema, not necessarily any single brand or company. And it so turned out that he felt that
16:31the, you know, a Nora was, was the right film and the right time for us to work together. And, and we
16:37agreed. And so, you know, I don't think it's any slight on a 24 or, you know, we would love to make
16:42his next movie, but the reality is, you know, we can all coexist and, and, you know, I, I would
16:50obviously be heartbroken if, if, if we don't work with Bong Joon-ho soon, you know, but we're not the
16:57right company for Mickey 17. That, that should be Warner Brothers.
17:00You're happy you didn't have that movie.
17:02Well, I don't think we could have afforded it. Yeah.
17:05Right. That's the, that's the best way of putting it. You'll, you'll keep the relationship going that way.
17:09Um, you're still in the acquisitions business. You're still at every festival. I see, I'll still
17:16see you at every screening. You still have that like youthful exuberance of needing to see everything
17:21and tell me how horrible and how terrible a movie was and how could I dare make you sit through it
17:27for an hour and a half. And, and at the same time, you'll come back and say, I absolutely want this
17:32movie. I'm not going to talk to you for three days. Maybe I'll send you an offer and all that,
17:36the torturing. But, um, now that I have you on stage and you can actually reveal yourself a little
17:41bit, I, I'd love to know, um, when you go into that movie theater, what are you looking for?
17:49What, what are you looking for in a movie? What are you looking for in the ethos of the movie?
17:53Are you thinking about the commercial viability of a movie? Do you care about the commercial viability
17:59of a movie or is it really about you and then Christian saying, you know, I mean, by the way,
18:05Christian who works for him is, is a genius. And, um, I do try to go through Christian when Tom says he
18:13wants to pass on something because sometimes Christian disagrees and can convince him otherwise.
18:18But, um, but how, how does that process work? What, what drives you to say, okay, well,
18:23this one is the one I'm going to buy. Um, I want to forget everything I've learned immediately. I,
18:30I want to be a pure audience member. I don't want to, and, and sometimes it's, it's, it's good
18:36and good enough yet. I can still start worrying about shit. How are we going to buy this movie?
18:41And, and I hate that. And it's such a painful experience to fall in love with something before
18:47you even, you know, before you're even betrothed. I mean, and that's, that's the difficult part of,
18:53of, of what we do. And so a lot of the films that we buy and are a part of, I don't really actually
18:59get to enjoy them until after we bought the film and I watched them again. Um, but anything that I
19:05can forget, why we're at Sundance, why we're in Cannes and just jump right into the movie and, and to do it
19:14with some of our team members, I mean, to me, that is the most fun and, and it's exhilarating.
19:20And so, you know, I, it's funny. I, everyone at the company has sort of a dot and, and we don't
19:26do groupthink. We're not sitting around and deciding by committee and, and I'm not a big fan of that.
19:32I'm a big fan of when two or three people, you know, or one is like, this is the hill I'm going to
19:37die on if we do not do this movie. And I've done it myself and there are other team members have done
19:41it. And one team member, Jason Wald, who's a VP of acquisitions and production, he brought me long
19:48legs and he showed me this little two minute clip. And I said, you gotta be kidding. We're not doing
19:54this. And he's like, I think you're, I think you're missing it. And, um, I said, okay, all right,
20:02if this is important to you, let's do it. And lo and behold, Oz delivered this movie and I saw,
20:09and I was like, oh my God, I totally get it. This is fucking great. This is a beautifully,
20:13beautifully made horror film that, you know, certainly has references to Silence of the
20:18Lambs, but it's very much Oz's own thing. And went through a couple more cuts. Jason sort of led
20:24the charge on that. And before we even finished delivering long legs, he's like, he's got another
20:30movie. Let's buy it. Keeper. And I was like, oh, come on, man. We just bought his, we gotta buy another
20:36one. We haven't even opened this one. And he shows me a little footage. I was like, come on.
20:42He's like, you made a mistake last time. Do you want to make the mistake again this time? I was
20:45like, fine, Jason, go ahead. You do it. Then we go to Cannes. We still haven't opened long legs.
20:52And he's like, oh, this has a new movie. I was like, Jesus Christ. How many movies can this guy
20:56make at any given time? He'd made Monkey. And I was like, can we see it? He's like, no, it's not finished
21:02yet. It's not finished yet. So you read the script. I was like, we get footage? No. He's
21:06like, we gotta buy it in a week. And it got really expensive. And I, you know, I was like,
21:13listen, I'm going to bed. Whatever happens in this negotiation tonight, it's on you, Jason.
21:17It's entirely on you. He does go to bed. He decides at some point he's not negotiating
21:21anymore. He turns off his phone. I'm like, it's very annoying. If you want to marry yourself
21:26and your career to this deal tonight, it's up to you. You deserve it. The pressure.
21:31The pressure. You put on your colleagues.
21:33Well, but that's what we're, that's meaningful. And who am I to decide? At some point, we don't
21:39know. But he clearly has it. And I trust him. And the irony is, I always say, I'll believe in you
21:46until three strikes, you're out. And this was his third strike. And so let's hope it works out.
21:53It could have all been balls. We didn't know.
21:55He didn't know. And so, lo and behold, Long Legs opens a month later. It's this massive success.
22:00You know, Christian played a big part in this as well. And I just immediately called Jason and I
22:05said, man, I'm so thoroughly impressed of how you handled this and convinced me to go along.
22:12And I was like, that's the job. That is exactly the job. And he's like, well, I can't take credit for
22:17that. He's like, you long ago taught me this one thing. If you don't get what you want,
22:24don't blame your boss. It's your fault. So Jason, if you don't get what you want,
22:28don't blame me. It was your failure to convince everyone around you to get the thing that you want.
22:34And I learned that a long time ago working for Sam Goldman. I couldn't convince him to buy what
22:39turned out to be an Oscar winning film, two years in a row, the foreign language Oscar. And I then
22:45realized it's not his fault, it's my fault. I'm just not doing a good enough job convincing him,
22:50and or just taking complete control of the situation and going and negotiating for the
22:55film myself and taking that risk. And so to me, I, anyway, it was just a, I can't take credit for
23:01everyone's work at Neon, but that's a great example of all the quality of executives that are doing
23:08their best work. Christian's one of them, Jeff Deutschman, you know, anatomy of a fall. That's
23:13entirely Jeff Deutschman, you know? Oh, there's a little bit of you in that too. Of course. I mean,
23:17I, I... No, Long Legs, I was like, I'm so surprised about that movie. But now it makes
23:22sense. But, you know, and we're making Oz's new movie. And Oz, for me, sits right alongside
23:29the auteurs that you... Bong Joon-ho, you know? And, and we are genre agnostic. We always wanted
23:35to be a part of these other, I mean, huge action. Pornography is going to be his next thing. Well,
23:38we've already done that. I mean, we have several X-rated films on the slate.
23:42Um, but all of it is to say, for us, it's all cinema. Being genre agnostic, country of origin,
23:48you know, we believe that what Neon represents is the best cinema the world has to offer.
23:52The country of origin, because you really, you, you are, um, I, my question was going to be so
23:59simple. I actually have to ask you a question about P&A later, but, but we're going to, hopefully,
24:04we can get through it. How much more time do we have? Seven hours? Great. Um, so some of your biggest,
24:11biggest successes have been foreign films. Um, you've convinced the American audience that not
24:20only were we ready for international cinema, um, but that we wanted to go out to a theater to watch
24:26international cinema, that it wouldn't be dubbed, that we would read subtitles. And I, I, I have my,
24:35my fascination in that is I, you, you market an international film like it is a domestic film.
24:40And I, I don't understand how you do that. Well, I, a lot of people give Netflix credit for that,
24:46for growing this audience. And, and I want to publicly, once and for all, give that man back
24:51there, Michael Barker credit for having, I think really, you know, I, he opened my eyes in a way
25:02that, you know, seeing Crouching Tiger and seeing Kung Fu Hustle, you know, and then Harvey, of course,
25:08Amelie. Like these are films that for me stood, stood well beyond the subtitles and, and, and we're
25:16crossing over in such massive ways. And, you know, I, I think maybe where we, where we might differ
25:23is, you know, we, we liked, you know, we, we delve into more genre. We have no aversion to, to certain,
25:32I think more hardcore genres, but also our marketing. We, we, we tend to have a little
25:37more fun and we lean into it and it's sort of like anatomy of a fall. You know, it could be scenes from
25:42a marriage, but not when you say, when your tagline is, did she do it? You know, at some point you have
25:49to have the conviction and confidence to truly sell your movies. And the other part is, you know,
25:54Parasite, there are two lines of English in that movie. Well, they should be up front and center in the
25:59trailer to give the audience an overall comfort about where we're going. And so these are limitations
26:05that you set for yourself, you know, same thing with anatomy of a fall. There's a lot of English
26:10in that film. Let's use that. But most of that film takes place in a courtroom. That's not the
26:16greatest sell for that film, even though it totally works within context of the movie. Well, let's make
26:21sure we cut a trailer where you don't see all you, you don't know that you're in a courtroom. Let's set
26:26these limitations on our marketing and service of trying to aim higher than what these films
26:32traditionally have either been sold as or what they gross. So no metrics. You don't ever think
26:39about metrics. You look at a success, a Parasite, and you're like, well, what the hell is the formula
26:45for that to happen? And it's really, it's connecting with an audience, you having faith in the movie,
26:50your team having faith in the movie. That's not true.
26:51Good. And the reason why it's not true, yes, we're operating in these sort of, you know,
26:56we're the, the anti algorithm. But I have test scores for all of Bong Joon-ho's movies dating
27:02all the way back to the host. And, you know, most of his films tested in the 60s, top two boxes,
27:10which for, you know, a foreign language film, not bad, almost the norm. But when we sat down
27:15and tested Parasite, it tested in the low 90s. And I was like, wait a minute, this is something
27:23different. Combined with 100% from Rotten Tomatoes, won the Palme d'Or in the vacuum of the summer.
27:29I was like, this is going to be a lot bigger. I didn't predict it would be 55 million or that we
27:35were going to win best picture. But people kept saying to me, this is the best Korean film I've seen
27:39in a while. I was like, no, I think this is the best film that you've seen from any auteur this
27:45year or previous years. He's one of the world's best filmmakers, Korea, you know, notwithstanding.
27:53And, and that was sort of a game changer that I think Bong, director Bong deserved that kind of
27:58recognition. It was the right film, the right time. And I'll give big shout out to our head of awards
28:05and publicity, Christina Zisa. We were at a dinner after they won the ensemble win at SAG,
28:16which I think is almost as big as them winning best picture. And, and she said, if not now,
28:23when? And I was like, right, if, if, if we aren't going to break 82 years of history,
28:29when the hell are we going to do it? And she was absolutely right. At that point, we went for it.
28:32And that night, um, after the SAG ensemble award, she's like, we also need to book the Soho house.
28:38I was like, what do you mean? We're going to need a party, a serious party when we win best picture.
28:43And I was like, oh my God, that's super ballsy. What? Really? So we booked the Soho house the next
28:49day. And, and, and it's sort of, there's an intention behind that, you know? And at that point,
28:54we did believe, um, because the other tagline for the film is it was in a class by itself.
28:59And, and so all of that came to fruition. And you can see some of those lessons learned
29:04and what happened later on with Anora and what happened with anatomy of a fall. Like we, we,
29:09we knew what it looked like. We had enough data. We knew what the palm door meant. We knew what the
29:13critical mass meant. We track all the, you know, uh, the prognosticators every week, which, which they
29:20are not the voters, but, but there is a nice telltale every week to see how these awards races go. And they
29:26matter because it does change the outcome for these movies. And they're exhausting.
29:30And they are very labor intensive. Yes. Yeah. So the world is changing very rapidly. And I mean,
29:38in so many ways, um, but we're just going to stick to cinema. Um, it's rapidly changing in terms of
29:45streaming, social media, changing habits. I mean, it feels like it changes on a weekly basis. Um,
29:53what, what about it excites you? What about it terrifies you? I think it's great. I mean,
30:01uh, the single best theatrical experience my son had this year in theater was watching
30:07K-pop demon hunter, which as a reverse platform, it wasn't just your son. I loved it. Well, it was,
30:12and I love that movie. I've seen it twice. I saw it at home. I didn't get to go to the theater with him,
30:17but the reverse platform post Netflix theatrical, I mean, like we have yet to fully embrace all the
30:23tools and or the windowing at our disposal. The idea that old boy, 20 years after its,
30:29after its initial release in the U S could gross three times what it grossed, uh, which we re-released
30:36for me is super exciting for a younger audience who'd never seen that film before. You know,
30:40for any foreign language film to gross $2 million, amazing for that film to be 20 years old and do it.
30:46I, I, I'm very optimistic about how far we can go. And, and there's a whole new generation that has
30:53no idea that the extraordinary amount of cinema that awaits them. So, um, I'm as much of a fan of
30:59tick tock as, as anybody. And I hate tick tock. I love tick tock. I hate it. I love it. And,
31:05and, and, you know, it, it's honestly just another strand of entertainment for me, you know, combined
31:10with TV, combined with cinema at some point, you know, I will delete tick tock off of all your phones
31:17today. How can you do that? I will take talk is yeah, but it is, it is, it is senseless entertainment
31:26that can keep you up for five more hours when you should be sleeping, when you have a meeting at
31:30eight o'clock in the morning. But it also, my feed, lots of great dogs, but also a lot of old
31:36movies, you know, and it's like, I like this mix. And weird people eating stuff and weird, it's okay.
31:40That's your feed. No, that is my feed. That's true. Um, if there was anything today that you can
31:47change about the film industry, what would it be? Oh my God, I, I may have stumped him.
31:54Um, it's so competitive. I mean, it's, and I'm as much to blame as anyone. I mean, I am competitive
32:04by nature, but the reality is the older I get, the wiser I get, I do believe that if only this
32:11industry would, and these companies would reach across the aisle, you know, for the reason that
32:16I just mentioned, there's so much more we can do. And I experienced this at Magnolia, where we were
32:22trying to, in the early days of, uh, of, of try to make an independent film industry profitable,
32:28which has always been difficult by adding VOD, by adding DVD in the first window of the film's life
32:34during its theatrical window. And it was unheard of and, and truly experimental and way ahead of its
32:41time. And I learned so much doing that, but it was so hard to get people to understand like, well,
32:47I get it. If we try and it works, we'll all have learned something. And if we fail,
32:52we'll rejigger the whole model. But it was so difficult to convince exhibition. It was so difficult
32:58to convince filmmakers, producers, and, and, you know, home end providers, everybody to play ball.
33:04And, you know, I subsequently years later managed to start to piece some of these companies together
33:11in trying to get Time Warner Cable, Comcast to work with AMC, you know, and, and trying to re-envision
33:18how we might do things differently. And, you know, great example of, of everyone cooperating was a
33:25movie called It Follows, which Neon, we are doing the sequel they follow. It was called an audible.
33:31That was the release plan.
33:32You had the first one too, right?
33:34No, we did the first one 10 years ago, which has been a 10 year pursuit to do the sequel.
33:38Um, it's very good.
33:39It's excellent. And David Robert Mitchell, the writer director, doesn't get enough credit,
33:43I think, for kind of reinventing horror, um, and elevating the genre. But, um, we would release
33:50it theatrically first, 20 markets. There would be no announced VOD window. The audience would decide
33:57in that first week, where was the next best window to go? How would we expand? And the Thursday night
34:04matinees for that film at the Arclight in LA were, I think we were, we did $6,000
34:09that night. And it immediately sent the message to us that, oh my God, this should be a wide release.
34:17And so we had a VOD window set up two weeks after clandestinely. We called all the VOD providers.
34:25We canceled the VOD window and subsequently went, went wide. And so it seems sort of,
34:32well, that's not that big a deal today because everybody's doing this post pandemic. But when
34:37we came into the pandemic, we were like, yeah, we know all the tools, exactly how to do this,
34:41what the price point should be, blah, blah, blah. But I still believe that between the streamers,
34:46the HOMENT providers, the theatrical distributors and filmmakers, we have other things that we can
34:51do that we are not trying just yet. And for that reason, I believe that there's a long way to go.
34:58And in service of protecting the thing that is the most exciting, bringing audiences together.
35:05And in many films, those audiences in those theaters are the best character. And we're never
35:09going to lose that. Most filmmakers don't want to lose that. I don't want to lose that. That's how I
35:14want to see movies. I love the flexibility that you have in testing the audience and seeing,
35:24is it going to be for them in theaters or if it will be for them at home? And that was like,
35:29honestly, and this is the dumbest question. It's a selfish question for me on P&A that I remember 10
35:36years ago, P&A, not the prints. It was about the money that we needed. It wasn't, you know,
35:44you can commit to 10,000 screens, but we needed a Nova. You're going to spend 10 or 15 million
35:49dollars. And now the deals have kind of switched to you're giving the number of screens. We're not
35:54really pushing back on you on the average spend, truly, because there's no real understanding
36:02on our part as to how one does things. When I see Cineverse spend $250,000 on a horror movie,
36:10event gross is $56 million. I'm like, well, okay, well, what are we talking about spend now?
36:15It does, how has that evolved over the last seven years? Because it feels like you can do a lot more
36:21with a lot less and still get the number of screens that you want and, and probably do a lot better
36:27than what, you know, I don't want to say Fox Searchlight, but, well, and I love Fox Searchlight,
36:33I love Matthew and I, but, but, but what they would do, what, what they would traditionally do
36:38is like spend $35 million on getting one of those independent movies out. I mean, you remember those
36:43days, that movie that you would spend $35 million on, on releasing, how much are you spending on
36:49releasing today? Yeah, we, I mean, uh, limitations are the mother of invention, right? We, we never had the
36:57ability or capacity to do it. So we had to learn how to do something else. And so brand social handles
37:04and, and using our own slate of films to collectively sell the next one, you know, in theater,
37:10trailer play is still the most important reason why people come to your movies, even the digital,
37:14the digital age that we live in. Um, but the other thing is, you know, we don't do ego based marketing,
37:20you know, LA is New York plastered with all sorts of out of home advertising, very inefficient. It
37:26kind of, you know, pollutes the city in a way. And I, I, we don't, we just don't do it. We'll do
37:31maybe one billboard. We'll do one billboard that is more impactful by virtue of how it's perceived on
37:36social than it is actually by eyeballs on the street. And, you know, the other thing is, uh, give
37:42credit to our CMO, Christian Parks, creativity matters. You know, we won last year for our long legs
37:48campaign. Um, the studio of the year, which an independent had never won, you know, a 24 had
37:53not won it. It's only been relegated to streamers or studios. And the reason for that is that that
38:00whole marketing campaign was super creative, but we spent $10 million opening that film.
38:04And the reason why we only spent 10, we could have spent 15, but we only spent 10 because we knew we
38:09didn't need it. We could see day to day, the amount of interaction and validation that we were getting
38:16across our materials and world building, which, you know, the billboard for that film is a phone
38:22number. It doesn't say the movie. It doesn't say the company doesn't say the opening date. It says
38:28a phone number in less than four days. There were 1.5 million calls to that phone number, listening to
38:34Nick Cage as long legs, right? Right. And, and the world building of that film had all these rabbit
38:41holes that would lead to the movie. But the most exciting part about it was the intertextuality of
38:47that marketing campaign. After you'd seen the film, we'd given you all the clues to what was in the
38:54movie. And to me, that is not only world building, but telling a story that has payoff where the
39:01marketing isn't simply selling the film. It is additive and it is its own artifact. And I think
39:08shit like that, we get off on all day, but it's fun and it's very effective. And so,
39:14and every movie is a different puzzle for you. It's a different puzzle. There's no, there's no,
39:19I mean, in the same way that traditionally a studio would say it fits in that box and that's how we
39:24have to release it. There is no box for you. You just, there is no box for us. And you know,
39:30the idea of not showing Nick Cage in long legs, there's no studio that would have released that
39:36film without showing their star. And our calculation was purely from being confident
39:42fans of this genre. No, you got to pay to see this guy do this, the most extraordinary performance of
39:50the year. And in context, it pays off in a way that outside, inside of, you know, a certain amount
39:57of marketing, it wouldn't have. It's like, don't show jaws, right? So it's little things like that,
40:02that I think, you know, take some time to consider what it means, what's the impact. And we also like
40:08to, you know, the things that we do where we try to be first in a lot of what we do, but we also try
40:15to be fast. And if it's not working, we'll just simply change. We'll change course and that's okay.
40:22Everyone's attention spans moves on and that's, that's fine. But I think not trying stuff by virtue
40:28operating out of fear is kind of stupid. You know, you're not going to learn anything.
40:32No, you, that's, that's all I wanted to hear. Yeah.
40:35One last question and then let's talk about how wonderful this festival is. But
40:4110 years from now, Neon will be seven, 19 years old. It's, I mean, it's a, it's a long time from now,
40:51but what, I mean, what legacy do you want to have, to have kind of laid for, for this community? I
40:58mean, what do you want it to be? Well, I, I'm a lucky dude. Uh, I had no conception that I would
41:07ever achieve anything in this business. So I'm just happy to be here. And that's the truth. Um,
41:13Sam, I'm surprised I didn't get fired this morning.
41:15Well, there's the day's not over. Um, no, I, I just said, you know, I just poured myself into
41:22something that I, you know, I'd been fired from every job until I started working in film and,
41:27and I just loved it. And I fell in love with the people. Um, but what's the legacy of Neon?
41:33You know, I, I get off most on seeing the team at Neon find their own path and sitting back and
41:42watching them succeed is really quite satisfying. And so, you know, I got to do my thing and now
41:47seeing what they're doing, uh, and, and for them to find the films that, that get them out of bed
41:53every day, that, that to me is the most exciting. You're definitely doing something special with
41:56them because their loyalty goes beyond anything. They're unhirable. They will not leave. Well,
42:02they, you know, it's nothing is forever. I'm joking, but no, it's, it's, I think that
42:09allowing your team to grow and as much as you are of a face, you're always going to be Tom Quinn.
42:14That's, there's nothing that you can change about that. Um, nor should you want to, but, but the,
42:20the fact that you've, you believe in empowering the youth around you and giving them the opportunity
42:27to fail and succeed is, is something where you, you breed loyalty. And I think that comes back to the
42:33filmmakers. It comes back to your company. It comes back to why we as an agency enjoy
42:38working with you so much. And it's just, um, you should embrace it and, and love it and actually
42:43accept a compliment from me. Thank you. You're welcome. Uh, we're, we're running out of time. I,
42:50I, I do have to say, you know, Reda, who's hiding always on the couch over there, um, does throw an
42:56amazing festival. And, and, um, I know that Michael out there, um, loves it. And, um, and Patrick, um,
43:04Patrick, um, complains when he's not there, but he's, he may has escaped now.
43:08Well, Michael, Michael's better half Tom or lesser half only likes to come when he gets the
43:13game changer award. I know that's true. Michael, Michael is loyal and comes every year.
43:18Yeah. Um, but you're, you're a true blue, Michael.
43:21And there's no one that's sadly more loyal than me. I'm just now it's just become an addiction.
43:26So I, I, they can't get me out of here, which, um, they're going to buy me a house this year.
43:31Um, and, and, but you, you've been, you've been pretty loyal to this festival and what,
43:36what about this place makes it feel special to you?
43:39It's the only, it's the only one of its kind. It's the only one of its kind. This room,
43:43the people who come here, I always manage accomplishing something every year.
43:47And, you know, Christian and Reda, I've always been super nice and great.
43:53You can't, I mean, you can't argue with the dolder, right? I mean, it's pretty sweet.
43:57Zurich is such a great city, but it's also a great festival. You know, it's very well attended.
44:01The movies, the selection, the time of year has only become more important and grown in prominence.
44:06And, you know, I, I can't, I would always hate the, and I've missed maybe a year here or there.
44:13And I'm always like, uh, and you're always complaining about it.
44:15And I'm complaining about it. Yeah. Um, but I'm, I'm, you know, I always try to get my wife to come back.
44:21She came with me a long time ago. Once.
44:23And I can't, I haven't been able to convince her to come back with me,
44:26but the Game Changer Award convinced her to come back.
44:28So for that reason, it's very successful.
44:30That's great.
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