Apple plans to spend $1 billion a year on films that will appear in theaters considerable runs before they’re available on its Apple TV+ streaming service.
Thomas Buckley and Lucas Shaw for Bloomberg News:
[Apple] financed and produced the three-and-a-half-hour film [Killers of the Flower Moon], which is based on a book by David Grann about the 1920s murder of Osage Native American tribe members after oil was found on their land.
The movie, due out on Oct. 20, is the most expensive ever released by Apple’s four-year-old studio. The company’s spent between $200 million and $250 million on production, including at least $25 million for DiCaprio, plus millions more to market it.
Killers is also the first test of a new strategy with big stakes: Apple plans to spend $1 billion a year on movies that will appear in theaters for weeks before they’re available on its namesake streaming service. It will release Killers on more than 10,000 screens in October and, at least 45 days later, drop the title on Apple TV+.
Cupertino, California-based Apple will employ a similar strategy with Ridley Scott’s Napoleon in November and Matthew Vaughn’s spy thriller Argylle in February. It also committed to a theatrical release to win the rights to a Formula One movie starring Brad Pitt.
MacDailyNews Take: This strategy will attract top talent – from writers to directors to star actors – that will create top tier content bound ultimately – and only – for Apple TV+ subscribers, growing Apple’s high-quality streaming service.
Please help support MacDailyNews. Click or tap here to support our independent tech blog. Thank you!
Support MacDailyNews at no extra cost to you by using this link to shop at Amazon.
I hate to hear that Apple is gradually but surely becoming an entertainment company. If they ever do buy Disney will they have to change their name to Disney-Apple Inc. God. No.
That’s the day I unload every penny of my Apple stock.
?
And I’ll be right there to snap ’em up behind you.
There are so many areas of cutting edge technology to be explored, but what does Apple do? …. they waste their money on actors faking the same old words in the same old useless ways. It is sad to see what Apple is becoming. Tim, you are probably a nice fellow on a personal level, but I am afraid your usefulness at Apple is used up.
It’s a brilliant strategy.
As usual, Apple plays the long game.
These films are being promoted like crazy, so will be that much more valuable by the time they stream on Apple TV+
Interesting to see Apple follow Amazon’s lead in releasing films to theatre before exclusive on its own streaming service. I guess one more step to increasing Apple investment in their “Services-Entertainment” category.
There are many reasons for to be in the entertainment business. Some of them are good for their overall bottom line. Yet, no doubt seeks with some level of intentionality to use entertainment to advocate for their political, moral, and social agenda.
ceased being solely a technology company along time ago. In the early days, sought to develop technology to empower people so they could effect change in the world. Today, doesn’t trust its customers to effect the “correct” sort of change. So now seeks to change its customers to bring about the change they have determined is best for everyone.
Jobs and Woz spoke a lot about the democratization of information via computers and the internet. Today’s leadership is more into groupthink than democracy of ideas.
This is precisely why I quit the entertainment/sports/music arena of spending my disposable income. It is why I cut the chord to cable and why I don’t go out to movie theaters anymore. It is why I am not beating down the door to join Apple+ streaming service or anyone else streaming service.
Good move Apple. Pay DiCaprio 25 million so he is flush with cash to be able to fly in a private jet from a Cannes party in Europe to America to accept some green award probably for telling me how I need to do this or not drive that in order to alter Climate Change and then DiCaprio flies private jet back to Europe to continue to party.
If the Hollywood activists and the politicians are not going to take Climate Change seriously, why should I?
(independent.co.uk/news/people/leonardo-dicaprio-flies-8-000-miles-in-private-jet-to-accept-green-award-a7042326.html)