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Apple Inks Deal With Steven Spielberg for 'Amazing Stories' Sci-Fi Series

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Apple is teaming up with Steven Spielberg's Amblin Television and Comcast's NBC Universal TV production unit to create new episodes of sci-fi series "Amazing Stories," reports The Wall Street Journal.

"Amazing Stories" is a science fiction and horror series created by Spielberg that originally ran on NBC from 1985 to 1987. During its two-year tenure, the show won five Emmy Awards. It focused on a new topic each episode, in the vein of "Tales From the Crypt," "Twilight Zone," and "Black Mirror."


Apple plans to create 10 new episodes of "Amazing Stories" alongside Amblin and NBC Universal, with plans to spend more than $5 million per episode. Spielberg is likely to be an executive producer for the new version of the show, according to The Wall Street Journal's sources.

"Amazing Stories" is the first series that Apple has taken on since the hiring of Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht back in June. Van Amburg and Erlicht, who helped produce shows like "Breaking Bad," "The Crown," and "Better Call Saul," are running Apple's video programming efforts on a worldwide scale under iTunes chief Eddy Cue.

The new show will join Apple's existing shows "Planet of the Apps" and "Carpool Karaoke: The Series." It marks the first show that is able to more directly compete with content from Netflix and Amazon.

Rumors suggest Apple is aiming to pursue high-profile deals with A-list talent to create shows on par with offerings like Netflix's "Stranger Things" or Hulu's "The Handmaid's Tale."

Article Link: Apple Inks Deal With Steven Spielberg for 'Amazing Stories' Sci-Fi Series
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/10/10/apple-steven-spielberg-amazing-stories/
Apple sure does love remakes: Carpool Karaoke was a remake of the recurring segment from The Late Late Show, Planet of the Apps was a remake of Shark Tank, and Amazing Stories will be remake of the 1980s show. If Apple wants to be successful in this space, they will need to come up with some original ideas. This "me too" streaming strategy isn't going to get them any where.
 
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The first show Apple will create that I might actually watch--though this is far from the quality of HBO and Netflix. I guess you gotta start somewhere.
 
I loved that show as a kid too, but Spielberg was on his way up at that point. He hasn't made a relevant movie in years. Remaking something for the sake of nostalgia with a director, as great as he was, now seemingly past his prime seems questionable.
 
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Love this idea, and it fits well with the retro swing of entertainment these days. Next, I hope they do something more forward-looking to push the envelope forward in ways others have not.
 
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I honestly believe that the trend to relive the 80's and 90's is popular because things were less stressful. The constant stream of anger, shock, and hate that social media brings makes us nostalgic for the past. I suspect there is a certain level of this feeling with each and every generation embracing changes in culture.

With that said, what will it take to break the current "Stranger Things" nostalgia trip? This has gotten boring.
 
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jdillings said:
Apple sure does love remakes: Carpool Karaoke was a remake of the recurring segment from The Late Late Show, Planet of the Apps was a remake of Shark Tank, and Amazing Stories will be remake of the 1980s show. If Apple wants to be successful in this space, they will need to come up with some original ideas. This "me too" streaming strategy isn't going to get them any where.
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This is an anthology show. As long as the stories themselves are unique and not literally remakes of the 80’s show, it’s fine.

The competition in this space is heating up all of a sudden, though. Netflix has Black Mirror, Amazon has Philip K Dick‘s Electric Dreams and Lore soon. Apple’s will have to be good.

miketcool said:
With that said, what will it take to break the current "Stranger Things" nostalgia trip? This has gotten boring.
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I think this has less to do with “nostalgia” and more with the fact that anthology series are a great fit for streaming services (hence the resurgance.)

As long as the show deals with contemporary issues, what’s the problem? Other than the name and the format, I doubt there will be much resemblance to the original because it’s an anthology. Look at the difference between the original Outer Limits and the 90’s one.
 
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jdillings said:
Apple sure does love remakes: Carpool Karaoke was a remake of the recurring segment from The Late Late Show, Planet of the Apps was a remake of Shark Tank, and Amazing Stories will be remake of the 1980s show. If Apple wants to be successful in this space, they will need to come up with some original ideas. This "me too" streaming strategy isn't going to get them any where.
Click to expand...

Carpool Karaoke is hardly a remake - its just new episodes of a fairly current show (or part of a show).
 
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barkomatic said:
The first show Apple will create that I might actually watch--though this is far from the quality of HBO and Netflix. I guess you gotta start somewhere.
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How do you have any idea about the quality? If anything, given Spielberg's involvement and a $5M per episode budget, this sounds like it _would_ actually be competitive in the premium content market!


Cougarcat said:
This is an anthology show. As long as the stories themselves are unique and not literally remakes of the 80’s show, it’s fine.

The competition in this space is heating up all of a sudden, though. Netflix has Black Mirror, Amazon has Philip K Dicks’s Electric Dreams and Lore soon. Apple’s will have to be good.
Click to expand...

Exactly, the type of show answers that question in-and-of-itself ... :)
 
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miketcool said:
I honestly believe that the trend to relive the 80's and 90's is popular because things were less stressful.
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They were only less stressful if you were a kid, living in the naiveté of not comprehending what 70,000 nuclear warheads that very nearly did launch any number of times would do to the world. Also, as a knee-jerk reaction culturally to the hippy dippy idealism of the 1970s, the 80s were not a great decade if you were not a middle class white kid. The nostalgia being sold to us now is lazy as hell, repackaged as a simpler wonderful time, just as the 50s were in the 80s, the 70s were in the 90s, and the 80s are today. Most of the people who actually buy into each of these manufactured nostalgia waves are kids who were too young to be conscious of what it was like at the time, or worse, kids who weren't even alive at the time but unable to find their place in the current time, latch on to some earlier time to unrealistically feel part of instead.
 
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How does Apple keep doing this? First you had iTUNES full of video, movies, TV, podcasts, and everything else. Now the have Apple MUSIC and they're trying to make it the go-to spot for video series and movies? :rolleyes:
 
I can see the idea of doing an anthology show, but I'm not sure it really needed to use the 'Amazing Stories' brand. How big of a draw will that really be?
 
gkarris said:
So will this show be subscription-based like Star Trek Discovery?
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Now _this_ is a good question. It seems like they're looking at something more like an Amazon, Hulu or Netflix, at least in terms of original programming. i.e., one price, all shows. (vs. their non-original programming which is sub/per episode fee based ... though I wonder if/when the two will merge if Apple makes a big push into that market).
 
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