Neon is in talks to promote a big stake in its firm to Division Ma manufacturing firm based two years in the past, IndieWire has discovered and as first reported by Selection.
It’s unclear the dimensions of the stake Division M could be buying, however it’s being backed by a consortium of personal buyers. Neon declined to remark and Division M didn’t reply to a request for remark.
However when you’ve undoubtedly heard of Neon, Division M is a brand new title on the radar. The corporate was based in 2024 and is led by Mike Larocca and Michael Schaefer. Larocca was the president and co-founder of AGBOwhich is the manufacturing banner fronted by “Avengers” administrators the Russo Brothers, and Schaefer is the previous president of New Regency. Larocca oversaw initiatives like “Extraction,” “The Grey Man,” and the sequence “Citadel” whereas at AGBO, and Schaefer was on the helm of New Regency whereas the studio produced movies like “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “The Northman,” and “Barbarian.”
Division M, in its transient existence, is already behind a few titles for which normal audiences could also be conscious, together with one quickly being launched by Neon. That movie is “The Christophers,” a movie from Steven Soderbergh that stars Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel and premiered eventually yr’s TIFF previous to Neon choosing it up for distribution. The corporate additionally produced “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” a horror movie that starred Maika Monroe and launched on Hulu final fall.
Division M’s slate additionally contains “Blood on Snow,” an adaptation of a Jo Nesbø novel directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga and starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, a brand new tackle “Rely of Monte Cristo” that has Regé Jean-Web page connected to star, and the corporate additionally optioned the rights to make a film based mostly on the fad toy dolls Labubu.
Neon again in 2022 explored a sale to Indian Paintbrush’s Steven Rales, however that deal finally fell by, and it was at a time when Neon’s rival A24 had additionally bought a minority stake in its firm.
Since then, Neon received one other Greatest Image Oscar with “Anora” after first profitable for “Parasite.” The distributor has additionally launched six straight movies to win the Palme D’Or on the Cannes Movie Competition, one thing that’s clearly a pet venture objective to maintain that streak alive. It had considered one of its largest business successes with “Longlegs,” however it additionally suffered a little bit of a mind drain when three Neon executives left to type a new specialised label at Warner Bros.