Neon CEO Says He Would Have Turned ‘Hitman' Into an Oscar Contender

THR has this very interesting interview with Neon founder and CEO Tom Quinn, and I’ll be covering more of it later today, but I want to zero in on something Quinn says regarding Richard Linklater’s “Hit Man.”

Netflix bought “Hit Man” at TIFF for $20M. It was the biggest deal of the festival. “Hit Man” was a critical darling at Venice and TIFF 2023, but that wasn’t enough for Netflix to give it a qualifying run last year, which is when it should have been in contention, not this year. Instead, they dumped it, nine months later, and the buzz has, more or less, dissipated.

Quinn says that Neon had offered $10M, with a full theatrical run and Oscar campaigning, to acquire “Hit Man”. He even claims that the film would have turned not only into a decent hit in theaters, but an Oscar contender as well.

We fell in love with “Hit Man” at Toronto last year. We absolutely thought Richard Linklater would be an Oscar contender for screenplay and director, and then you have Glen Powell — who is in an absolute vortex of hyper-celebrity — in a role I found very classic in nature. No one makes movies like this anymore. The film was made for, I believe, somewhere between $5 million and $7 million. We offered $10 million for U.S. rights only, which would’ve been a record sale. We believed the film would have grossed in excess of $25 million domestically, with a chance of doing maybe as much as $40 million. Considering what’s happened this summer with Longlegs, I think we would’ve been proved right.

Quinn calls the Netflix deal for “Hit Man” a “disappointment for exhibition” and goes on to note that Neon would have taken better care of Linklater’s film.

In June, “Hit Man” played for one week, in very select theaters, but you wouldn’t have known it, the film was justifiably dumped into oblivion. A week or so later, it appeared on Netflix, where it managed to get strong viewing numbers and further accentuated Glen Powell as a leading man.

The film starred Powell as Gary Johnson, a police staff investigator who plays the role of a hit man to catch individuals ordering a hit. He ends up falling hard for Madison (Adria Arjona) whom he talks out of a hit on her abusive husband.

“Hit Man” was a surprisingly sexy screwball noir from Linklater. It kept messing with the viewer’s head as characters switched identities, and lies upon lies got piled up. Powell’s shape-shifting performance was no doubt a career booster, but I must also mention Adria Arjona as the femme fatale — she’s stunning. Her chemistry with Powell in this film is electric.