Apple Original Films has acquired worldwide rights to Cherry, directed by Avengers: Endgame directors Anthony and Joe Russo, in a deal pegged in the high $40 millions.
Mike Fleming Jr. for Deadline:
The film is a decidedly different kind of drama, an adaptation of the bestselling novel by Nico Walker that is based on his story. It is a finished film that will become an awards season entry.
Tom Holland plays a young Cleveland man who, after being spurned by the love of his life, joins the army before she returns to tell him she has made a mistake and they belong together. He becomes an Army medic in Iraq and sees violence and carnage no one should. Returning with a raging case of undiagnosed PTSD, he is prescribed the opiate Oxycontin. Soon, he and his young wife move from pills to heroin, and he turns to robbing banks to pay their debts and feed their habit. Walker’s young wife is played by Ciara Bravo (Small Engine Repair).
MacDailyNews Take: Cherry gives Apple yet another* viable awards season contender. Fleming reports that the plan is to qualify for the Academy Awards and premiere the film in early 2021 on Apple TV+.
*Apple already has the Tom Hanks-starrer WWII film Greyhound, Emancipation with Will Smith, the Martin Scorsese-directed Killers of the Flower Moon starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, On The Rocks, the Sofia Coppola-directed film that stars Rashida Jones and Bill Murray; the Cherry Jones-Jason Segel-starring The Sky is Everywhere, the Sundance Grand Jury Prize winning documentary Boys State, the Spike Jonze-directed Beastie Boys Story, the Werner Herzog film Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds, and Sharper starring Julianne Moore.