Today is the Apple TV+ debut of Wolfs, which had its original theatrical plans abruptly canceled. To mark the occasion, Bloomberg has a report out detailing Apple’s new film strategy moving forward. And it sounds an awful lot like Netflix’s approach.
New plan: low-cost TV+ films, plus rare theatrical blockbusters
Since Apple TV+ launched in 2019, Apple has earned acclaim for several of its movies. Notably, CODA was the first title from a streaming service to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
In the past couple years, Apple has shifted from producing arthouse awards darlings to going bigger budget. Killers of the Flower Moon, Napoleon, Argylle, and Fly Me to the Moon all scored wide theatrical releases. None earned back their production costs, and some were complete flops.
So it’s no surprise that Apple has a new film strategy, as outlined below.
Thomas Buckley and Lucas Shaw, writing for Bloomberg:
Apple will now focus on making about a dozen movies a year, most of them produced for less than $100 million, according to people familiar with the company’s plans who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about an internal matter. That means Apple’s commitment to spend $1 billion annually on films won’t change, but the makeup of the company’s movie slate and release strategies will, the people said. Apple will still aim to take one or two big theatrical swings a year with films exceptionally approved for higher budgets, such as F1. But films like Wolfs, for which Clooney and Pitt earned a combined sum of tens of millions of dollars, will be marketed as streaming rather than theatrical titles.
In summary, it sounds like Apple is going to take a note from Netflix’s playbook.
Rather than investing much in theatrical releases, the company will instead produce most of its movies for streaming.
There will likely still be one-week limited theatrical windows, like Wolfs received, but that’s solely for awards contention and to make Hollywood happy.
Overall, Apple’s new movie strategy can be summarized as:
- 1-2 big theatrical swings per year, accompanied by larger budgets
- But mostly lower-cost Apple TV+ releases for the vast majority of new films
9to5Mac’s Take
As much as movie theaters could use an injection of big tech’s money, I think this is the right move for the company.
In this post-pandemic era, we’re all more accustomed than ever to just watching movies at home. Film releases have to be especially compelling to garner substantial ticket sales.
What do you think of Apple’s new film strategy? Let us know in the comments.
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