A24’s Risky Hollywood Moment
The masters of hipster cringe have Oscar hardware and Wall Street cash. Can it finally go mainstream?
Over the years, indie film companies have tackled freakish cultural abnormalities, from unutterable sexual taboos to all manner of other transgressive topics. But not long ago, executives at A24, arguably the reigning champion of American art-house films—which recently put out a movie called Dicks: The Musical that featured a flying, animated vagina—attempted to do something truly beyond the pale by even the libertine standards of its cohort. A24 pursued a deal to make league-sanctioned films for the NFL. “For us, it was like, how do you take this thing that’s so well established and so Americana and have an A24 look and vibe?” says A24’s head of TV and nonfiction, Ravi Nandan, without irony.