Thanks to A24, Movies Are Brands Now
Not even a steaming pile of hot takes about The Drama’s big first-act twist could blunt A24’s marketing muscle. On Tuesday, internet’s favorite production company dropped a series of graphic tees created by NY-based indie brand Emily Dawn Long for its latest discourse-stirring film: the appropriately titled The Drama. Long sourced over 60 vintage T-shirts for the capsule, creating unique 1-of-1 tees that inevitably, immediately, sold out. So did the hoodie that terminally online brand Praying concocted for The Drama a few weeks prior.
Releasing must-buy merch designed by a buzzy indie designer has been standard practice at A24 for years, but the strategy hits different in the wake of the Marty Supreme-quake that accompanied the Timothée Chalamet-led table tennis drama late last fall. That was when a collection of limited-run Marty Supreme windbreakers (designed by LA streetwear label Nahmias, Chalamet, and his stylist) prompted frenzied crowds and resellers to pack into pop-ups worldwide. Videos of the snaking queues intertwined with snaps of everyone from Kid Cudi and Frank Ocean to Tom Brady and Bill Nye (notable Science Guy) wearing the jacket, transforming movie merch drop into an IRL cultural event. It helps that the jacket, like the Japanese sneakers that followed months later, was genuinely cool.
These meticulously marketed capsules aren’t just selling people on the distributor’s latest films; they’re selling them on the value of A24 itself. Now, movies aren't just movies. They're brands.
Over the past eight years, A24 has expand its merch-making roster to include shirts by Chicago’s enigmatic Boot Boyz Biz collective, sterling-silver lockets by LA-based jeweler J Hannah, and an entire beauty brand with Euphoria’s makeup artist, Donni Davy; it even let Online Ceramics make a $450 stainless steel sword between releasing sold-out Hereditary sweats.
A24 has already Hollywood’s coolest 14-year-old, thanks to its stream of provocative indie (and indie-feeling) flicks but it's quietly becoming even better known for releasing a steady drip of cool but quiet product drops with fashion’s most interesting young designers.
Each collaboration has a cultural intelligence that transforms the resulting product into not just a piece of merchandise, but an entry point into a larger lifestyle that surrounds the movies and A24 itself — there’s a reason it sells early access to its movies and merch drops, after all.
Sticking to the same winning playbook it has refined over the last decade isn’t just a reminder that A24 has really, really good taste; it also establishes a level of authenticity that feels increasingly rare in Hollywood.
Not even a Jared Kushner-backed funding round and a $3.5 billion valuation in 2024 have blunted A24's cultural capital or scuffed its sheen as the industry’s coolest distributor. The recent Martyssance and Drama drop have confirmed that while A24’s merch strategy — big film, small designer — hasn’t changed, the culture has.
Now, every movie needs its own merch cycle — perhaps you can also toss some blame Barbenheimer's way — which is why The Devil Wears Prada 2 got an Old Navy collection and Sinners got a Fear of God collab.
We live in the Peak Enshittification Era, where the internet has become a labyrinth of algorithms designed to sand down individuality and funnel taste into whatever hits the highest metrics. In this age where everything is flattened, A24’s playbook of inviting up-next designers to elevate movie merch into a cultural moment feels radical, even as it's widely imitated.
This is a reality of A24's making and in this realm, A24 remains king.
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