Trilith teams up with comedy hitmaker to expand focus beyond blockbusters
In a move that expands its focus beyond producing blockbusters, Fayetteville’s Trilith Studios will become home to a new hub for teen-focused comedy production company American High.
The partnership will allow American High, which has found success in provocative comedies like “Big Time Adolescence” and “Prom Dates,” to scale its output and expand its slate by tapping into Trilith’s production technologies and facilities, according to a news release. It also guarantees Trilith a steady slate of productions occupying its stages.
The goal for American High South, as the new outfit is called, is to generate four productions per year starting in the first quarter of 2026.
Trilith, home for years to Marvel Studios projects and other tentpole features, has faced the same industry headwinds other studio campuses have faced. The somewhat steady stream of tentpoles from Marvel, Disney, and other major studios that kept Atlanta crews and vendors employed for at least a decade has either moved overseas or evaporated entirely. Work is still happening across Atlanta, but it’s a fraction of what it was years beforehand.
Soundstage operators across the country are having to pivot. Trilith is the largest studio in Georgia, representing more than 1 million square feet out of the more than 5 million in the state, and housed a number of these larger-scale productions. Now, it wants to include creators, brands and other complementary businesses.
“This is about expanding the breadth of storytelling and storytellers that you influence culture,” said Trilith Studios CEO and President Frank Patterson.
American High was founded in 2017 by screenwriter and director Jeremy Garelick, whose most recent project, “Rolling Loud,” shot in Atlanta earlier this year. It’s known for producing films by first-time filmmakers set at American high schools. These include Pete Davidson-fronted “Big Time Adolescence” and R-rated Hulu comedies “Crush” and “Summer of 69,” along with more than a dozen other titles mostly aimed toward streaming platforms.
In recent years, the company has also expanded to producing short-form skits across multiple brands on TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat. The production value on these is cheekily lower than their feature films, enabling them to blend in with more grassroots content creation across the platforms.
The company is based out of Liverpool, New York, where Garelick bought a former high school building for $1 million and turned it into a production and post-production studio with a nonprofit media production training program. American High’s larger projects are eligible for tax credits under New York’s incentive program, which can go up to 40%.
American High will occupy office space at Trilith. The two entities haven’t discussed whether American High will receive lower rates on its soundstages relative to outside productions, Patterson said. But Trilith works with filmmakers to meet their needs. If it’s a low-budget film, they’ll support them in facilities that don’t cost as much, he said. If it’s a higher-budget film, they have bigger facilities to house them.
The idea was forged as Garelick was filming parts of “Rolling Loud” at Trilith. In between shoots, he and Patterson would find times to connect and discuss both their plans for the future. They both wanted to support the emerging “creator economy” — that is, the hordes of people making and monetizing content on social media — while also creating movies and television shows that, in Garelick’s case, have a specific voice and audience.
Patterson envisions collaboration between American High and both the Trilith Institute, which is its nonprofit education arm, and the Georgia Film Academy. This could look like crew members trained at the GFA working on American High productions or screenwriting students helping to pen scripts for digital shorts.
“I don’t want to predetermine how they should collaborate,” Patterson said. “But there are some obvious intersections.”
About the Author
Savannah Sicurella is an entertainment business reporter with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
