Camilla Belle attends the Los Angeles premiere of A24’s “Warfare” at DGA Theater Complex on March 27, 2025 in Los Angeles, Calif. Getty Images

A24, the chic independent studio that has captivated cinephiles since launching in 2013, maintains an oddly inverse relationship between cultural impact and financial reality. The studio, specializing in low-budget filmmaker-driven artistic stories, has never exceeded 2.45 percent of the annual U.S. box office. Civil War, its highest grossing movie globally, topped out at just $127 million. Yet, A24 has quickly become one of Hollywood’s defining brands, transforming into a multifaceted lifestyle company with a faithfully devoted following. 

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Last summer, the famously niche studio secured funding that valued it at a whopping $3.5 billion—much smaller than the publicly traded Paramount’s $8 billion market cap but on par with the mid-major studio Lionsgate’s $2 billion valuation (though comparing private valuations and public market caps is far from apples to apples).

In recent years, whispers around town have grown increasingly louder that A24 is eyeing bigger-budget, broader appeal fare. As its business ambitions grow, essential questions arise: Can the cultivators of cult classics go commercial? What risks and rewards follow? And what is A24’s ultimate endgame? 

Living up to a $3.5 billion valuation

A24 typically operates in a profitable lane of low-budget productions with short paths to break even. Its average theatrical budget ranges between $15 million and $20 million and it never breaks the bank on marketing. This approach will likely never produce

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