Ava DuVernay says Neon dropped the ball distributing Origin

In case it wasn’t clear earlier this year, Ava DuVernay is disappointed with Neon, the distributor behind her 2023 film Origin. The film “represents a big challenge and it’s part of a big lesson I’ve received as a filmmaker,” she said at the Marrakech International Film Festival (via The Playlist). The experience behind the scenes of Origin made her “think about what I need to do next time to have a stronger outcome,” and that includes picking a different distributor. “I chose Neon to do it and it was not the right choice for this film. I will make a better choice next time.”

The award-winning director observed that Origin “had difficulties finding an audience,” which she attributed in part to “lackluster distribution and a challenging market because of the subject matter.” She continued, “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.”

Origin is based on the true story of author Isabel Wilkerson (played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) and the writing of her book Caste: The Origins Of Our Discontents. The A.V. Club gave the film a B rating, with reviewer Courtney Howard writing, “It’s not easy to do what DuVernay’s done with the narrative, turning a nonfiction, informational page-turner into an investigational, biographical drama. While it doesn’t pull off the adaptation quite effortlessly, it finds its footing, balancing on a high wire.” 

While the film—and Ellis-Taylor’s performance in particular—received critical acclaim, it was considered a box office bomb. In early 2024, DuVernay hinted at the behind the scenes tensions when she suggested that the reason Origin didn’t become an awards contender was a “mechanism of our distributors’ limited budget and strategy in the way that it’s been rolled out.” (The strategy, apparently, was to put all its money behind Anatomy Of A Fall and leave its other films to flounder.) The official Origin Twitter/X page was less circumspect in its criticisms of Neon, posting about the company’s Oscar party: “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 [Neon founder Tom] Quinn and team. That’s how Neon rolls. More on this later.”

Apparently we’ve gotten to “later,” because DuVernay was frank in admitting that “It hurts to make something and put all your love into it and it can’t quite reach the audience” (per The Playlist). Citing director Ed Zwick, she noted “that a film’s success is not judged by the box office and reviews but by time, and I hope that time will be kind to this film.” She reiterated later: “I have to believe in time. Hopefully, this film will be found later.”