Copyright forbes
CYPHER w Tierra Whack - Jury Prize Winner Tribeca 2023 Marginal MediaWorks Hollywood is at an inflection point. The tired, old model of relying on billion-dollar superhero franchises and recycled IP is no longer delivering consistent results. Audiences are restless, younger, more global, and increasingly vocal about what they want. Whether it’s Bad Bunny selling out shows in Puerto Rico to the breakout hits “K-Pop Demon Hunters” or “Adolescence”, audiences are choosing cultural experiences from around the world that feel fresh, authentic, specific, and relevant to their perspectives and interests. Studios that ignore this cultural shift risk losing an entire generation of viewers. Established mini-majors like A24, Neon and Blumhouse that embrace this shift stand to unlock new cultural moments and billions in value. In this vein, Marginal MediaWorks is poised on the leading edge of the next frontier in culture and filmed entertainment. Founded in 2019 by Sanjay Sharma, Marginal was built on a simple but powerful belief: the most exciting stories come from voices and trends that Hollywood often ignores as too niche. Their motto is telling: “We like projects where identity is a prism, but not the plot,” says Sharma. “That means stories are shaped by perspective, but first fall squarely in a popular, commercial format.” Sanjay Sharma, Founder Marginal MediaWorks MORE FOR YOU The comparison with its peers is instructive. A24 has become the premier indie studio, known for taste-driven hits and critical acclaim. NEON has championed global indie arthouse from “Parasite” to “Anatomy of a Fall”. Blumhouse has mastered the horror genre that, with enough volume, found outsized returns. Marginal is emerging as the studio that combines all of these strengths: prestige and edge, genre and budget discipline, but with a focus on global vision and voices. A thriller, comedy, or sci-fi can all be universal and entertaining, while still carrying the richness of specific lived experiences. The company expertly marries sub-cultures and sub-genres in a unique way that keeps it dialed into and ahead of younger and global talent and trends, an area that Hollywood increasingly lags further and further behind. The company is not betting on massive tentpoles that need to gross half a billion dollars to break even. Instead, it is building a portfolio of modestly-budgeted projects that can deliver solid returns with manageable risk. The potential upside is not just profitability, but the creation of franchises and formats that travel across platforms and borders. Maybe even a new kind of library built for theatrical optionality, but also evergreen, global streaming. Marginal also develops projects with a data-informed, multi-platform mindset from the start. A film is not “just” a film; it might also be a podcast series, a graphic novel, an interactive experience, or the seed of a theatrical franchise. For example, the company has developed graphic novels into animated series (the Scout comic, “Jazz Legend”, for example), original TV series as short films (this example, “Demons”, just premiered at TIFF), and even videogames as scripted podcasts. This makes Marginal not just a content producer but an incubator of valuable cross-platform intellectual property that has the audience in mind from inception. “Democratizing global access to Hollywood - and to audiences…a new generation of filmmakers who can operate without the traditional gatekeepers and centers of power in Hollywood.” Marginal MediaWorks Matt Dines, former head of Paramount’s indie label and now co-founder with Jonah Hill of the production company Strong Baby agrees. “I believe Marginal has a significant opportunity—and they’re clearly making the most of it. Audiences are seeking bold, fresh storytelling that stands apart from what they typically find in short-form or social media content. With their strong creative instincts, impressive track record, and deep relationships with talented filmmakers, Marginal is discovering and supporting original ideas from diverse voices across the industry,” said Dines. Dines’ company has partnered with Marginal on a dance franchise called ‘Leave it on the Floor’. Marginal has already built an impressive track record with ten films in just over 4 years. Nearly every one of its films has either premiered at a major film festival and been sold to a premium distributor, or been made directly in partnership with a major buyer like Hulu or Amazon. The company has sold its first TV series, its first animated series, and is soon announcing its international slate of film and TV, from Japan and India to Italy and Canada. Its 2023 film, Cypher, a wildly experimental thriller about Philly-based rapper Tierra Whack pushed the boundaries of fiction and nonfiction, and won the U.S. Narrative Jury Prize at Tribeca. Its 2024 film She Taught Love, a romance in the tradition of Before Sunrise or Past Lives, premiered at the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival and was named Independent Film of the Year by the African American Film Critics’ Association. Impoerted, sports documentary, now streaming on Hulu Marginal MediaWorks This year, Marginal released its first documentary, Imported, about Americans playing professional basketball overseas. The film was made with Improbable Media, the new venture founded by global NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo, and was released on HULU and Disney+ worldwide in August. Its next documentary, The Rose: Come Back to Me, chronicles the journey of a breakout Korean indie rock band that has become a global sensation. The film premiered at Tribeca (where it was a runner up for the Audience Award) and Busan International Film Festival, where it was acquired by CJ - the Korean giant behind Academy Award winner “Parasite” - who plan to give it a global theatrical release in 2026. “We are, after all, in a cultural industry,” says Sharma. “Other cultural industries, say music or fashion, have been totally reimagined because of technology on the one hand, and the globalization of audiences, on the other. This same tectonic plate shift has already happened in filmed entertainment, Hollywood is just now getting the memo.” Actor and producer Daniel Dae Kim (whose company 3AD is developing a sports comedy, “A-League,” with Marginal), shares his view. “What excites me in a word, is opportunity. In a time where our politics are so divisive, we have the opportunity to create greater understanding between people through what we do as entertainers. We can create stories through authentic, specific storytelling that reveal the common threads we share as human beings. We can help shift the focus to what unites us instead of divides us, whether it be between nations, cultures, or political philosophies." Many of Marginal’s projects come from first- or second-time creators of color, immigrants, women or the LGBTQ community. The strategy is clear: broaden the pipeline of who gets to create stories, back them early, and scale them into formats with crossover reach. "Streaming has a democratizing effect, and we've seen this in music and on YouTube. Because audiences have more choice, and there is a broader creative class, the traditional gatekeepers are less relevant," said Sharma. The company may not have hit its "Get Out" or "Moonlight" moment just yet, but the foundation Sharma has laid through arguably the hardest period in modern media history is unparalleled among new, indie studios in Hollywood. “American youth today are minority/majority” says Sharma. “The priority growth markets for global streamers are Asia and LATAM, which also happen to be the largest and fastest growing communities in the US. New studios have to be data-rich and tech savvy, but also culturally relevant in the US and abroad, and the traditional Hollywood model is just not well positioned for this shift.” The margins, in other words, are where the future is being written. And Marginal is showing that the voices typically excluded, may be precisely the ones that carry Hollywood forward to global success. Editorial StandardsReprints & Permissions
