Neon’s Rise to the Top with ‘Longlegs’, ‘Parasite’ and Rivalry with A24

It’s almost unheard of for filmmakers and top talent to respond to a journalist almost immediately without going through armies of publicists. Not so when it comes to Neon founder and CEO Tom Quinn, the savvy and innovative indie executive whose company is having its best year ever thanks to educating moviegoers under 35, as well as watching another one of his films, Anorawins the prestigious Palme d’Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival for the fifth consecutive year, an unprecedented feat for an American independent or studio distributor.

“Tom has something—a trait once highly valued by humans, which one might say, looking around, humans apparently no longer need—it’s called good taste, and Tom has it in abundance. I think he’d put it in his laundry detergent, his toothpaste, his milkshakes.” Long legs Director Oz Perkins tells THR within hours of receiving a request for comment.

Perkins and Neon are still reeling from the record performance of Long legsThe summer box office sensation that surpassed Bong Joon Ho Parasite to become Neon’s highest-grossing title of all time domestically with over $74 million, making it the most successful independent horror film in a decade and the best independent film of the year so far (currently, it’s No. 12 in the summer charts in a tight battle with Alien: Romulus and ranking ahead Mad Max: Furiosa). Sydney Sweeney, who starred in and produced Immaculate for Neon earlier this year, also shared his views almost instantly: “One thing I admire about Tom is that he is genuinely pro-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.”

Over the course of his three-decade career, the director has worked for independent production houses Samuel Goldwyn, Magnolia and then Radius-TWC, a label of The Weinstein Co., before founding Neon (officially known as NEON Unrated LLC) in 2017 with backing from 30West. Neon has released 115 films, both narrative features and documentaries, and has earned 32 Oscar nominations and six wins, including Best Picture and Best Director for Bong’s breakthrough film Parasitethe first non-English language film to win the statuette. He has a team of 52, including his chief lieutenants Elissa Federoff, who serves as distribution director, president of acquisitions and production Jeff Deutchman, president of publicity Christina Zisa and chief financial officer Ryan Friscia. “What I know for sure is that from the beginning, Tom Quinn saw Parasite “It was a universal film and I refused to put it in a box as a foreign language or international film,” says Bong, who worked with Quinn on Snowdrop And Mother. “He saw the heart of the film and understood that it was about all of us living in our modern world…