NEON acquired Ava DuVernay’s “Origin” right before its debut screenings at Venice and TIFF. The film, which left me indifferent, garnered good but not great reviews.
DuVernay noticed NEON’s supposed lack of interest in her film and backhandedly called them out, numerous times. It came to a point where the film’s lead actress, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, could be seen, masked, mostly unnoticed, handing out flyers for the film outside movie theatres in California.
DuVernay isn’t done scorching NEON. Speaking at the Marrakech International Film Festival (via The Playlist), the filmmaker acknowledged that the film “had difficulties finding an audience.” DuVernay continued …
It had lackluster distribution and a challenging market because of the subject matter. It came right at the beginning of the tragedy in Palestine and it talks about genocide, racism, Islamophobia, a lot of tough subjects that were uncomfortable for people.
The filmmaker concluded her thoughts on the subject by saying that “Origin” made her “think about what I need to do next time to have a stronger outcome […] I chose NEON to do it and it was not the right choice for this film,” she said. “I will make a better choice next time.”
What DuVernay fails to mention is that the film was also ignored by major voting bodies like SAG, PGA, DGA, as well as most of the year-end top-ten lists. “Origin” was originally marked down by pundits as one film to keep an eye out on during awards season, but it never really caught on.
Fact of the matter is that the film had originally been marketed and campaigned by NEON as an awards player, but it never really picked up steam. Despite its Venice and TIFF berths, not many people were talking about it, which is why NEON basically gave up on it.
If you remember, NEON had shut down the X account for “Origin,” after the account decided to go rogue and bash the studio for not inviting the film’s cast and crew to their Oscar afterparty.
Tweets had started popping up on the “Origin” account calling out Neon’s lack of promotion for the film. On Feb. 27, the “Origin” account posted a screenshot of a Showbiz 411 article published Feb. 25 that read, “Neon Pictures has already snuffed out Ava DuVernay’s ‘Origin’ and Michael Mann’s ‘Ferrari.’ What happened to this company? They certainly put all their eggs in the ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ Basket. And that one has not even made $5 million after 19 weeks!”
The “Origin” account also retweeted years-old posts about NEON’s “erratic distribution” and “mishandl[ing]” of Chinonye Chukwu’s 2019 film “Clemency,” as well as the lawsuit against NEON due to the 2018 Aretha Franklin concert film “Amazing Grace.”
This isn’t the first time DuVernay has shown frustration about the failings of one of her films. Before “Origin,” there was her $100M costing 2018 bomb, “A Wrinkle Before Time,” which was met with negative reviews and had DuVernay hinting that racism was the reason behind the failure of that film.