NEON and TheaterEars, Inc. today announced the Director’s Experience release of “It Ends,” writer-director Alexander Ullom’s debut feature, distributed by NEON. Beginning Friday, August 28, audiences at participating theaters nationwide can listen to Ullom with producers Carrie Carusone and Evan Barber’s commentary track in real time, synchronized to the film as it plays, using only the TheaterEars app on their own phone and a pair of headphones.

How It Works

Moviegoers download the free TheaterEars app, select “It Ends” and their showtime to get the track on their phone, then press play when the movie starts. The app synchronizes the filmmakers’ commentary to the projected film and works across all formats including RealD and 4DX.

The app is free to download from the App Store and Google Play and is free to use (ad-supported) for the Director’s Experience during any standard showtime at participating locations, providing the moviegoer with premium audio experience without an additional ticket upcharge.

“Commentary tracks have always arrived after the fact, months later, on a disc or a stream, to an audience that has already moved on. ‘It Ends’ is a film built out of conversation, and Alex is a filmmaker whose audience found him online and then showed up in theaters. Putting his voice in that room, while the film is still on screens, is exactly the thing we built this for.” — Dan Mangru, Founder & CEO, TheaterEars

“It Ends” follows four recent graduates who leave for a late-night snack run and turn onto a two-lane road that never bends, never ends, and is bordered by something that does not want them to stop. Most of the film unfolds inside a single Jeep Cherokee. Ullom, who wrote, directed, and edited the film, has called the mode “hangout horror” — dread built out of conversation, silence, and the slow erosion of four friendships rather than out of setpieces.

That construction makes it an unusually good candidate for the Director’s Experience. A film shot largely in one vehicle, carried by performance and cut, is a film where knowing what the director was solving in a given shot changes what the audience is watching.

“I made a movie that takes place almost entirely inside a car, so I spent a year thinking about what four people say to each other and what they don’t. Getting to sit next to an audience while they watch it and tell them what we were actually doing — in a theater, while it’s still in theaters — is not something I thought was possible when we were shooting this in twenty days.” — Alexander Ullom, writer, director, and editor, “It Ends”

“It Ends” joins a roster spanning first-run studio releases and anniversary engagements of modern classics — “Project Hail Mary,” “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu,” “Toy Story 5,” “Wet Hot American Summer,” and “La La Land” — covering original science fiction, franchise event filmmaking, animation, cult comedy, the modern movie musical, and now independent horror from a first-time filmmaker.

Alexander Ullom was born and raised in Tampa, Florida, and is now based in Los Angeles. He began university studying computer science and redirected toward filmmaking at eighteen, going on to study at Florida State University’s College of Motion Picture Arts — where he met producers Carrie Carusone and Evan Barber, both of whom would go on to produce “It Ends.” His pre-feature work screened at Academy Award–qualifying festivals and drew recognition from the Student Emmy Awards.

The financing story for “It Ends” has become part of the film’s lore. Ullom posted a comedy sketch to YouTube that went viral; a commenter wrote that they would pay for more of it, and the exchange turned into the film’s first money. He cast all four of his leads — Phinehas Yoon, Akira Jackson, Noah Toth, and Mitchell Cole — off Instagram and shot the feature in 20 shooting days.

In 2024, ahead of the film’s premiere, Ullom was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” “It Ends” premiered in competition at SXSW 2025 and was acquired for theatrical distribution by NEON. Ullom is represented by UTA, Entertainment 360, and McKuin Frankel Whitehead.

About Neon
In only nine years, Neon has garnered 57 Academy Award nominations, winning Best Picture for Sean Baker’s “Anora” and Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite.” This year, Neon received 18 Oscar nominations, the second most for any motion picture studio. Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” and Kleber Mendonca Filho’s “The Secret Agent” were both nominated for best picture, with “Sentimental Value” ultimately winning the award for Best International Film – bringing the studio’s total to 11 wins.

Neon continues to champion bold, risk-taking cinema and has built an impressive streak winning the coveted Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, with seven consecutive wins, including this most recent year’s winner “Fjord,” as well as “It Was Just an Accident,” “Anora,” “Parasite,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Titane,” and “Triangle of Sadness.” In 2024, Neon was named The Hollywood Reporter’s Independent Studio of the Year and received the Clio Award for Studio of the Year.

As a burgeoning leader in the production space, Neon’s recent and upcoming in-house productions include: David Robert Mitchell’s “They Follow;” Alex Ullom’s “4 x 4: the Event;” Matt Johnson’s “The Vice Guide;” and Arie and Chuko Esiri’s “Clarissa,” which had its world premiere at the Directors’ Fortnight during this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Neon has grossed over half-a-billion at the box office, highlights include Osgood Perkins’ “Longlegs,” which was the highest grossing independent film of 2024 at $75 million domestically, and his follow-up feature “The Monkey,” Neon’s second highest opening. The studio is currently in post on its fourth Perkins film, “The Young People.” Their upcoming slate includes notable auteurs such as Chloe Domont and Cristian Mungiu. Neon’s recent releases include “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie;” Baz Luhrmann’s “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert;” Steven Soderbergh’s “The Christophers;” and “Hokum” starring Adam Scott. Up next: Alex Ullom’s “It Ends;” Sundance hit “Leviticus;” “Her Private Hell;” James Grey’s “Paper Tiger,” Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “All of A Sudden;” and Bong Joon Ho’s “Ally.”

Neon’s library spans more than 140 films, including Academy Award nominees “Sirat,” “Arco,” “Perfect Days,” “Robot Dreams,” “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” “Moonage Daydream,” and “Flee,” which made history becoming the first film to score an impressive trifecta of Oscar nominations; double Oscar nominee “The Worst Person in The World,” “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” and triple Oscar nominee and winner “I, Tonya.”