THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 26 FEBRUA RY 26, 2020
The Business
Creative Space
Photographed by Damon Casarez
BONG: JEROD HARRIS/GETTY IMAGES.
Tom Quinn
The indie distribution chief on plans to follow Parasite
with a move into production, the ‘major flaw’ in the Netflix
model and why Neon won’t end up like Open Road
By Piya Sinha-Roy and Scott Feinberg
I
t’s been 48 hours since
Parasite swept the Oscars,
and Tom Quinn — co-
founder of Neon, the independent
distribution outfit that helped
usher the South Korean film
to its four wins, including best
picture — is still a bit dazed. “The
happiest night of my life was
marrying my wife,” says Quinn.
“The second happiest was win-
ning best picture for Parasite and
Bong Joon Ho.”
Quinn’s path to one of the
most successful modern Oscar
campaigns began when the
49-year-old — who grew up in
Sweden and Dubai, the son of a
basketball coach, before moving
back to the U.S. for college — first
arrived in Hollywood to pursue
acting. He fell into a labyrinth
of jobs, including publicity at
Samuel Goldwyn Films and
acquisitions at Magnolia in
New York, where he fostered a
relationship with Bong on his
early efforts The Host (2006)
and Mother (2009). He went on
to launch Weinstein Co. spin-
off Radius with counterpart
Jason Janego and release Bong’s
Snowpiercer (2013). Quinn then
co-founded Neon in 2017, and
30West acquired a majority stake
in 2018. Quinn returned to L.A. in
August as Neon and its staff of 28
prep the company’s next phase:
making movies. “To be in produc-
tion,” he says, “I don’t think you
can do it without having a firm
foot in L.A.”
As a producer, the intent is to
make films for less than $10 mil-
lion. As a distributor, budgets
aren’t necessarily so mod-
est. Quinn invited THR to his
West L.A. office to explain both
and also address the bleak track
record of Oscar-winning indie
studios, Parasite’s TV remake
at HBO and recent Sundance
acquisitions — including the
record-breaking $17.5 million
(and 69 cents) that Neon and Hulu
shelled out for festival darling
Palm Springs.
What’s the value of an Oscar to a
company like Neon? Will you now
put out more movies?
No, possibly less. We did a fair
number of incredible documen-
taries and foreign-language
films in year one [2017], but they
didn’t have the same impact that
[doi ng fewer] doc umentaries
and foreign-language films had
this year. I don’t think the slate
changes that much. The one thing
that we are intent on doing, and
we feel that we’re ready, is that
we’d like to make movies.
Will you enter that arena with just
one film or several?
I don’t think you can cherry-
pick, and I don’t think you can
do just one. It’s the same with
foreign-language films and
documentaries. You have to be
committed to cinema through-
out your whole slate. A director
we may discover on film one,
working with them on their
Back in Los Angeles for the second time,
Tom Quinn was photographed Feb. 11 at
the Neon office space in West L.A.