Apple has signed a first-look deal with AR Content, the production company led by Academy Award-nominated producer and director Alexander Rodnyansky (“Beanpole,” “Leviathan,” “Loveless”), Variety reports.
Leo Barraclough and Christopher Vourlias for Variety:
The deal is for a slate of both Russian-language and multilingual shows for Apple TV+, set both inside and outside Russia, and creatively led by both Russian and international writers and directors.
Although the pact is with Rodnyansky’s L.A.-based AR Content, which he set up three years ago to finance the development of feature films and television, it is his production expertise and experience in Russia that appeals to Apple most, he told Variety at the Cannes Film Festival.
“Apple is extremely interested to explore the possibilities in that part of the world. It’s going to be the very first of all the global streaming platforms to sign a strategic partnership with a company with Russian roots,” he said.
The deal is similar to those Apple has signed with Ridley Scott’s Scott Free and Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment.
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