Apple is investing approximately $250 million in the Brad Pitt film “F1,” marking one of its largest entertainment ventures since entering Hollywood in 2019, as executives prioritize high-end, aspirational content, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the project. Warner Bros. (WBD) will distribute “F1” for Apple, earning a share of box-office revenue, while Apple is exploring the creation of its own theatrical distribution division, the report adds.
Ben Fritz and Joe Flint for The Wall Street Journal:
Apple has put its full muscle behind “F1,” which was shot on special cameras for IMAX screens. It kicked off its recent Worldwide Developers Conference with a promotional video for the movie and is offering a discount on tickets bought with Apple Pay—the first time it has done that for a film. Cook has personally hyped it alongside Pitt and Formula One racer Lewis Hamilton, which the CEO typically does only for Apple’s most important launches.
But Apple hasn’t invested in the capacity to release and advertise its own movies, as Amazon did when it acquired MGM. Warner Bros. is distributing “F1” for Apple and gets a percentage of box-office revenue that increases with ticket sales, according to a person familiar with the arrangement.
That approach saves Apple on overhead costs, but puts it at the mercy of partners that may prioritize their own productions.
Warner Bros. is releasing “Superman,” its most important movie of the year, two weeks after “F1.”
A Warner spokeswoman said it is giving “F1” a “robust global marketing campaign that befits a film of its size.”
Apple executives have discussed starting their own theatrical distribution unit, people familiar with the matter said.
MacDailyNews Note: “F1 The Movie” premieres in theaters and IMAX nationwide on June 27th and premiered internationally on June 25th.
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If Apple can be seen as having a particular passion, it’s clearly in the tv/vid production realm.
I’m all for it, but I try to reconcile this will the paltry $$ gains reported so far…especially when combined with the stalled innovation and riding the iPh-crest on the tech side
The passion is limited to Tim Cook, Eddy Cue and maybe a few other execs. TV/film are obviously outside of Apple’s core competencies. They’ve done a decent job but at tremendous expense for negligible benefit to the company. As far as the comment below that they should have invested in data centers of course, but they could have done BOTH and then some. The problem is that at the moment when they should have been starting those massive investments (~2015-2019 when TV+ was being developed) they didn’t think AI was important. They really thought they were launching something that would rival Netflix before long, instead they’re lagging behind Disney+ which launched later.
Investing in shows and movies was a huge mistake imo. All this money would’ve been better spent on datacenters and infrastructure.
Apple’s move into theatrical distribution sounds like a bold next step. Owning the pipeline could help them control their film releases and maximize profits. Excited to see how this changes the industry landscape