A24 is shutting down it’s documentary division, The Wrap has learned. Five staffers are being laid off amid the change.
The division run by Nicole Scott most recently produced “Look Into My Eyes,” “The Last of the Sea Women,” “The Sixth” and Steve Martin doc “Steve!” Also affected is head of production Emily Osborne, who joined A24 from RadicalMedia. Both Scott and Osborne will stay on with A24 while completing work on remaining projects.
The entertainment company will continue to manage non-fiction projects that are either completed or currently in production, such as “André Is an Idiot,” “Architecton,” wrestling doc “Death Match” from the Philippou Brothers (“Talk to Me”) and true crime series “The Yogurt Shop Murders.” A24 hasn’t ruled out working on future docs with filmmakers, but an insider said the market has become too challenging to support an entire division.
The move comes as the mini-studio has pivoted to seeking more commercial IP-driven projects, as TheWrap first reported. The company has adaptations of “Elden Ring” and “Death Stranding” in the works, for example.
In the late 2010s, the massive boom in demand for film and TV projects on streaming led Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and Apple TV+ to turn the doc space into a sellers’ market. But as production and acquisition spending significantly declined as studios moved to make their streaming services profitable, that boom came to an abrupt end. In 2018, a peak year for docs, four films made more than $10 million each at the domestic box office: “Won’t You Be My Neighbor,” “RBG,” “Three Identical Strangers” and “Free Solo.”
Since movie theaters reopened in 2021 following a year of pandemic closures, only one documentary has passed that $10 million mark: “After Death,” an Angel Studios doc about near-death experiences. The next highest-grossing doc was the Anthony Bourdain profile “Roadrunner” with $5.3 million.
Variety first reported the news.
