The independent film world can be brutal and there’s a high mortality rate for companies looking to break into the movie business. Over the past year, the likes of Broad Green, Alchemy, and Relativity Media have either scaled back their operations or shut off the lights entirely.

But Bold Films, the producer of “Nightcrawler” and “Whiplash,” believes that betting on auteurs is the key to its longevity. Now in its 14th year, it has inked “first look” deals with Ben Stiller’s Red Hour Productions and Jake Gyllenhaal’s Nine Stories Productions, and it’s preparing to unveil its most ambitious slate yet, a series of films featuring the likes of Reese Witherspoon, Keira Knightley, and Dev Patel.

Over the past two years, Bold has moved from buying packages, the industry term for films that agents cobble together with scripts and talent attached, to ramping up its in-house productions.

“The package market is thin,...