A24 to Shut Down Doc Division

A24 is shutting down its stand-alone in-house documentary arm, a division that was behind titles like Netflix doc The Deepest Breath and Steve McQueen’s Occupied City. In all, five roles will be impacted by the move.

Among those affected is the well-regarded non-fiction exec and producer Nicole Stott, who headed the mini-major’s non-fiction arm. Stott joined the company from Concordia Studio where she served as the co-head of non-fiction, working on Oscar and Emmy-winning titles like Summer of Soul, Boys State and Still: A Michael J. Fox Story. Emily Osborne, who served as head of production and joined A24 from RadicalMedia, was also impacted by the scale-back of the division.

The non-fiction team will be staying on long enough to aid in the transition of ongoing projects. Upcoming non-fiction titles include the Death Match wrestling doc from the Philippou Brothers, the filmmakers behind Talk to Me, and true crime series The Yogurt Shop Murders, and will continue to be handled by the studio.

A24, which was also behind doc features on Stephen Curry and Steve Martin, is scaling back its documentary output as the larger industry has been scaling back on non-fiction slates after years of high output and record-breaking sales. A year ago, the non-fiction industry lost a major player in Participant Media, the producer-financier behind titles like An Inconvenient Truth and RBG.

The move also comes as the studio has been in its own moment of transition. Following its headline-grabbing $4 billion valuation, A24, which has built its brand on filmmaker-driven movies that can’t be found at the major studios, has been pushing toward bigger-budgeted and more commercial features. A24 recently announced video game adaptations of Elden Ring and Death Stranding and, in the past year, released its biggest-budgeted movie to date, Alex Garland’s Civil War. Upcoming films Marty Supreme, starring Timothée Chalamet, and Smashing Machine, starring Dwayne Johnson, are among other expensive outings.