Just when we thought we were done with Ava DuVernay and “Origin,” comes more drama .. The X account for “Origin” is complaining that they weren’t invited to Neon’s Oscar afterparty last night. Yes, they actually tweeted about it. The account wrote:
Is it odd that the filmmakers of Neon’s current film in theaters weren’t invited to this Neon celebration? Nope. Standard operating procedure for Quinn and team. That’s how Neon rolls. More on this later.
The Quinn they are referring to is Tom Quinn, CEO and founder of Neon.
Fact of the matter is that Neon didn’t really know what to do with Duvernay’s film this past awards season. The reviews were fine, but there just wasn’t much enthusiasm for it. Neon instead opted to go all in with “Anatomy of A Fall” and relegated “Origin” to the sidelines. Smart move.
DuVernay had previously hinted, on her social media, discontentment towards Neon for doing her wrong with their lack of promotion on “Origin”. She didn’t explicitly call them out, but did come pretty close, and definitely insinuated that her film deserved better backing than it got.
DuVernay and the film were 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 a film to keep an eye out for during awards season, but it never really caught on. That’s the sad truth. There’s no conspiracy here. “Origin” just wasn’t people’s cup of tea.
DuVernay’s last film before “Origin” was 2018’s “A Wrinkle Before Time”, which was met with negative reviews and ended up having DuVernay hinting that racism was the reason behind its commercial and critical failure. She always seems to have someone to blame but herself.
The short version: "Woman Unknown" was a compromise. The jury deadlocked over "Possible Love" and "NAZA," not able to com to terms, fell back on their #3, May el-Toukhy's film.