The first time I remember having too many movie choices was when our local movie rental store (RIP Media Wave) decided to transition to DVDs and offload all of their VHS tapes. At one dollar apiece, I must have spent hours perusing my options to put together the perfect collection to fit my budget. The actual catalog they sold was probably in the hundreds, but back then for a middle schooler that might as well have been infinite options. So naturally I left with twenty dollars worth of old Godzilla movies.
Nowadays, endless options are a basic requirement when it comes to video on demand. Consumers are presented with more than a few streaming services and video on demand apps that offer thousands of titles, more than one person could ever hope to watch in a lifetime. But recently a new player has entered the scene that offers a smaller catalog of content that is surprisingly refreshing.
Angst & Existential Crises Everywhere All at Once
A24, the independent film studio darling, recently launched its own member service named AAA24. For $5 a month you get access to exclusive behind-the-scenes content as well as discounted merch and early access events. But part of that launch also included the release of a standalone video on demand service, currently available as a web app and an iOS app. While the service’s functionality and services are pretty standard fare that you will see with most other video on demand providers or streaming services, one notable difference is the catalog size.
As of December 2023 A24 has 87 films available to rent or buy through the service, most of their catalog besides a few more recent releases. Compare that to Netflix’s 18,000+ titles, Hulu’s 7,250+ titles, or Max’s (formerly known as HBO Max) 3,300+ titles and you might find yourself wondering why anyone would even bother signing up or using the service. Not only that, but many of these same titles are also available to stream on Max and will be for the foreseeable future.
I’m panicking just looking at these.
But while using the A24 app I didn’t notice any trace of choice paralysis thanks to this smaller catalog. Instead of spending altogether too much time comparing my choices and eventually falling down a bottomless hole of options before giving up and picking whatever I found, I was able to see the entire library in the span of a few minutes. I was a few minutes deep into my moody and colorful exploration of the human condition (Aftersun in this case, just brutally brilliant) by the time I normally would have been only starting to panic on any other platform.
While A24 won’t be dethroning Netflix anytime soon, it’s releasing this standalone service at an opportune moment. Right now consumers have a lot of reasons to be fed up with the larger platforms: ongoing price increases, password-sharing crackdowns, overall poor user experiences on their platforms, and the constant rigamarole of content being cancelled or removed entirely from libraries. These issues have many wondering if the streaming model itself is fundamentally broken. Plus as a film studio A24 isn’t beholden to this service in order to survive and it doesn’t have to grapple with the cutthroat nature of streaming prices since they are only offering their content on demand. Add to that A24’s sizable community of devoted fans as well as its hyper-unique branding and the chance of success is looking good.
But there are also a few industry trends working against a standalone service like this. For one thing, the last thing people want to do right now is sign up for one more service. Subscription fatigue is all around us as every manner of company, whether it’s appropriate or not, looks into moving to a subscription model to obtain reoccurring revenue from customers. Even though the paid membership isn’t required for access to A24’s titles, that still means one more account you have to create and maintain. And while there have been other attempts in the past to create video on demand services centered around specific themes or genres, the results have been mixed. AMC Networks’ Shudder became a breakaway streaming hit for horror fans and has exploded in size since its launch in 2015, while The Criterion Channel’s niche classic movie service Filmstruck fizzled out a mere two years after its launch in 2016. Another interesting note is that Shudder’s catalog has a little over 700 titles compared to Filmstruck’s over 1,600 titles while it was active. So it’s hard to say whether or not these factors will have enough of an impact on the A24 app.
Now I don’t believe A24 is trying to compete with any streaming services at the level of a Netflix or Amazon, but I do believe the company is picking up on the trend towards independent platforms we are seeing play out in many other content-focused industries. And while we’ve seen plenty of individual creators in fields such as video content and journalism thrive using this business model I don’t expect there will be more film and television companies following in A24’s footsteps anytime soon. Mainly because there really isn’t any other independent film company that can wield the same level of cultural capital. A24 has nurtured a devoted following by curating a distinct brand of films that permeates across genres and themes in a way no other independent film studio has managed to replicate so far. If I say the name A24 to the average moviegoer, there’s a decent chance that a specific film or vibe will probably pop into their mind almost immediately. But outside of giants like Marvel/DC/Disney/etc. I can’t name a single other studio who has the same level of prestige. There just aren’t any other studios or bodies of work as opinionated or cohesive enough to stand out to consumers in contrast to the amorphous and all-consuming platforms that dominate the industry.
The A24 app isn’t going to trigger major changes across video on demand. It will likely remain a niche service used by a very specific group of consumers devoted to one film studio’s work. But in an industry dominated by streaming behemoths, I think an option on the opposite end of that spectrum is a welcome addition. And while I don’t envision any other studios joining A24 anytime soon, I believe having more specific and curated VOD options like these will only serve to improve our content consumption as consumers. It’s an opportunity for all of us to try swapping out a tsunami of endless content for a pond. Limitations to be certain, but perhaps a little more serene.