Neon Exploring Sale As It Taps Merchant Bank Raine

Neon Exploring Sale As It Taps Merchant Bank Raine

Neon, the independent film distributor founded by Tom Quinn and Tim League and which broke through at the 2020 Oscars with Parasite, the first foreign-language title to win Best Picture, is looking to be sold, Deadline has confirmed from sources.


The company is hoping to branch out more into television and streaming, and bulk up its production pipeline. The fact that A24 notched a $225 million equity investment in March provides hope that some or all of Neon’s businesses could be sold. Reports are that A24 at that time was valued at $2.5 billion. It’s unclear at this time what Neon would be worth.

The distributor has had a recent streak of distributing those movies winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, starting with 2019’s Parasite from Bong Joon Ho. It continued with Julia Ducournau’s Titane and this year’s comedic crowdpleaser Triangle of Sadness from Ruben Ostlund.


Neon turned Parasite into one of the top-grossing foreign films in the U.S./Canada, grossing $53.3 million; the pic altogether made $263.1M worldwide. The movie won four Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director, Original Screenplay and International Film. The pic was nominated for six Oscars.


Neon also had at Cannes this year the David Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream and David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future starring Kristen Stewart, Lea Seydoux and Viggo Mortensen. The distributor’s other top-grossing movies include the Oscar-winning I, Tonya, which made $30M, and the breakout documentary hit Three Identical Strangers which made $12M at the domestic B.O.


The New York Times was the first to report the news about Neon.


Neon declined to comment for the story.