NEON CEO Tom Quinn has revealed that the production company's biggest competitor is not A24, as one might assume, but Netflix.
A24 and NEON have become two of the largest and most well-known platforms championing independent features from both up-and-coming and established filmmakers. NEON boasts award-winning films like Parasite, Anatomy of a Fall and the recent Best Picture, Anora, while A24 is known for equally acclaimed films like Midsommar and Everything Everywhere All at Once, and campaigned for The Brutalist this awards season.
It's natural to assume that the similarities between the art-house companies' projects would make them rivals. However, in an interview with Variety, Quinn revealed that NEON often finds itself in a bidding war against Netflix instead.
Quinn shared, "The industry thinks there's a rivalry (with A24), and there's not. It's good headlines. I thought they might be our biggest competitor. But as it turns out, our biggest competitor has been Netflix. They desperately tried to beat us to buy I, Tonya and Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and we ended up losing out to them on Hit Man, May December and Fair Play. There's a slew of movies where I'm the second-highest bidder (to Netflix)."
Quinn also revealed that NEON bidded for The Brutalist, but the film's director Brady Corbet ultimately went with A24 due to a disagreement over release strategy.
The CEO also spoke to NEON's campaigning strategy for Anora, sharing that the company "follow[s] the beat of our own drum. The idea of pandering to the campaign as opposed to being who you are as a film is a big, stark difference. We never play to the campaign. We always play to the film, filmmaker and audience — in that order." This strategy has worked out well for NEON so far, with the company taking home the Palm d'Oer every year since 2019, and both Anora and Parasite winning the top prize at the Oscars.