It is virtually unheard-of for top filmmakers and talent to get back to a journalist almost immediately without going through armies of publicists. Not so when it comes to talking about Neon founder and CEO Tom Quinn, the savvy and innovative indie executive whose company is enjoying its best year in history thanks to nurturing the under-35 cinephile crowd, as well as seeing yet another one of its films, Anora, win the prestigious 2024 Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or for the fifth consecutive year, an unprecedented feat for a U.S. indie or studio distributor.

“Tom has something — a once highly valued human trait that, one might argue by looking around, apparently humans don’t need anymore — it’s called good taste, and Tom has it in surplus. I think he might put it in his laundry detergent, his toothpaste, his milkshakes,” Longlegs director Oz Perkins tells THR within several hours of receiving a request for comment.

Perkins, and Neon, are still reeling from the record-breaking performance of Longlegs, the summer box office sensation that has surpassed Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite to become Neon’s top-grossing title of all time domestically with north of $74 million, making it the most successful indie horror pic in a decade and the top indie film of the year so far (currently, it’s No. 12 on the summer chart in a neck-and-neck battle with Alien: Romulus and ranking ahead of Mad Max: Furiosa). Sydney Sweeney, who starred in and produced Immaculate for Neon earlier this year, also dispatched her own take almost instantly: “One thing that I’ve admired about Tom is that he’s honestly for the art. Neon often takes risks with unconventional storytelling and marketing strategies. They support independent films and filmmakers, creating engaging ways to bring audiences into worlds that some companies may overlook.”

The film executive’s three-decade career included stints at indie stalwarts Samuel Goldwyn, Magnolia and then Radius-TWC, a label of The Weinstein Co., before he founded Neon (the official moniker is NEON Unrated LLC) in 2017 with backing from 30West. Neon has released 115 films, both narrative features and documentaries, and garnered 32 Oscar nominations and six wins, including best picture and best director for Bong’s groundbreaking Parasite, the first non-English film to take home the statuette.

...

Quinn, who grew up overseas, where his dad coached basketball — helping to explain his worldly perspective — recently spoke with THR about the state of the business, Neon’s rivalry with A24 and why he doesn’t let dust-ups with talent get him down.

...

Neon and A24 rank Nos. 10 and 9, respectively, in 2024 domestic box office share, with less than $15 million separating the two of you. Do you cringe when seeing all the glowing headlines about A24? How do you view your rivalry?

It’s a great question. We are both New York-centric companies. That’s where we started. Most of us, if not all of us, have worked in New York. I spent 20 years there but now live in L.A. We’ve exchanged a lot of directors. We pick up movies that they walked away from, and vice versa, but we’re not the same. Here’s a stark difference: In their first seven years, they released three foreign-language films and three documentaries. We’ve released 64 — 32 foreign-language films and 32 documentaries. We are very different, but are very much on the same trajectory. They won best picture, and we won best picture. But I don’t understand their business and their valuations. I’m sure most of the industry doesn’t either, but more power to them.

What’s the one that got away in terms of a bidding war?

I was all over [2022’s] Talk to Me. We were the first offer, the highest offer and the only wide-release offer before anybody else woke up. And we narrowly lost that to A24, so credit to them.