Neon has closed a transaction for production company Department M to acquire a significant stake in the distributor, the companies announced Friday. The deal will further help Neon expand its reach and operations while enabling the brand to launch a new television division, Neon TV.
The news follows IndieWire’s reporting from February that the upstart production banner — founded in 2024 and behind this year’s Neon release “The Christophers” — was exploring taking a stake. Financial details were not disclosed.
That deal has now closed, and Department M partner Michael Schaefer will become Neon’s chief content officer as part of the transaction, while partner Mike Larocca will remain at Department M but also join Neon’s board of directors.
Tom Quinn will remain CEO and founder of Neon. Jeff Deutchman continues as president of acquisition, production and development for film, while Carina Sposato now joins Neon as EVP of television. Both will report directly to Schaefer. Department M is also contributing development assets and production-ready projects as part of the new structure.
Sposato, currently Department M’s head of TV, is an Emmy winner for producing Netflix’s “Adolescence,” and she’s also previously been behind shows like “High School,” “Paper Girls,” “The Hot Zone,” and “Raised By Wolves.”
Schaefer was previously the president of New Regency, producing films like “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “The Northman,” and “Barbarian.” Larocca was president of the Russo Brothers’ AGBO and backed “Extraction,” “The Gray Man,” and the series “Citadel.”
Department M so far has released “The Christophers,” Steven Soderbergh’s film that made $4.8 million at the box office, and the Hulu streaming film “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle.” It’s in the works on “Blood on Snow,” an adaptation of a Jo Nesbø novel directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga and starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, a new take on “The Count of Monte Cristo” with Regé Jean-Page, and a Labubu movie. It is also behind an untitled new film from “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” director Matt Johnson, starring Finn Wolfhard, that Neon picked up in May.
Longstanding Neon backers The Friedkin Group remain significant shareholders and board members.
