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Apple Picks Up 'Little America' TV Show Written by The Big Sick's Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon

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Apple has picked up a new TV show called "Little America," a half-hour anthology series written by Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon, the duo behind popular movie "The Big Sick," and Lee Eisenberg, who produced comedy series "SMILF" and will serve as showrunner.

According to Deadline, "Little America" is based on a series of true stories featured in Epic Magazine that paint a portrait of America's immigrants. From the magazine description:

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Everyone here came from somewhere else. Even Native Americans crossed the Bering Strait at some point. This is the basic American idea -- an identity open to all -- but it can be easy to forget from inside. And that's when politics can turn ugly, as it has recently, with our political narrative becoming a story of blame and fear. "Little America" is meant to counter that narrative with a fuller portrait of our most recent arrivals. Here we present just a few stories.

You'll meet a woman who kissed a car for 50 hours. A man who escaped communism via zip-line. A Hindu Mayor of a small Kansas town. These stories are a small, collective portrait of America's immigrants. And thereby a portrait of America itself.
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The show will reportedly look at "the funny, romantic, heartfelt, inspiring, and unexpected lives of immigrants in America." Nanjiani and Gordon will executive produce, alongside Alan Yang, "Master of None" co-creator, and Eisenberg.

"The Big Sick," written by Nanjiani and Gordon, won multiple award nominations and was the highest-grossing indie movie of 2017. Nanjiani is also known for his work on "Silicon Valley."

"Little America," alongside Apple's "Are You Sleeping" drama starring Octavia Spencer, are two projects that are being developed for straight-to-series consideration.

Apple has already inked deals for several other shows that will go straight to series, such as an untitled morning show drama starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, an "Amazing Stories" reboot from Steven Spielberg, an untitled space drama from Battlestar Galactica creator Ronald D. Moore, a series written by "La La Land" creator Damien Chazelle, a Kristen Wiig comedy series, See, an epic world-building drama, and Home, a docuseries focusing on incredible homes.

Apple now has at least nine television shows in the works, and details about each one can be found in the original content section of our Apple TV roundup.

Update: Apple has officially ordered "Little America" to series according to Variety.

Article Link: Apple Picks Up 'Little America' TV Show Written by The Big Sick's Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2018/02/08/apple-little-america-tv-show/
The more shows the better. But I start questioning the rational for all the companies entering this business. I am not sure there is enough ad or device sales money to sustain all this production.
 
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Looks like we may see a TV subscription service from Apple. I hope they will have a version combining Apple Music and the TV service into a single, helpfully discounted bundle. I would sign up.
 
ersan191 said:
TV and Movies probably - they likely intend to compete with Netflix.

Very few of the shows they are working on sound interesting to me - and this isn't one of them.
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There will likely be a market for it. Their goal of remaining 100% family friendly seems pretty limiting to me. Hallmark Channel will never do the number HBO does. Doesn't mean Hallmark doesn't have a niche though.

edit: or maybe a better analogy is HGTV. They're putting up huge numbers.
 
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falainber said:
The more shows the better. But I start questioning the rational for all the companies entering this business. I am not sure there is enough ad or device sales money to sustain all this production.
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There will be a shakeout for sure, and the cost of subscribing to all of these services are already more than paying for a decent cable package... at least in my area. People wanted choices... as they say, be careful what you ask for.
 
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ersan191 said:
TV and Movies probably - they likely intend to compete with Netflix.

Very few of the shows they are working on sound interesting to me - and this isn't one of them.
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I think the one advantage Apple have is the amount of cash they have to spend on content. It will be interesting to see if they pool a video content subscription along with Apple Music all for one price maybe? £20 a month
 
Karma*Police said:
There will be a shakeout for sure, and the cost of subscribing to all of these services are already more than paying for a decent cable package... at least in my area. People wanted choices... as they say, be careful what you ask for.
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It was always going to be this way. Once everyone gets their differing services up and running, we're going to see the wheat separate from the chaff. Then we'll start to see the consolidation. After that we'll be right back a few major players. That a-la-carte dream some had isn't and never was going to materialize.
 
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falainber said:
The more shows the better. But I start questioning the rational for all the companies entering this business. I am not sure there is enough ad or device sales money to sustain all this production.
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That's the beauty of free enterprise and capitalism. Competition is good and will tend to produce the best product, at the best price, for the consumer. Cable vs. streaming services vs OTA vs purchases, etc.
 
Dave245 said:
I think the one advantage Apple have is the amount of cash they have to spend on content. It will be interesting to see if they pool a video content subscription along with Apple Music all for one price maybe? £20 a month
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I'm not totally sure what they'll do - cordcutters (and most people nowadays) are very much against bundling.

IMO the best thing they could do is offer a discount on Apple Music if you subscribe to their TV/movies service (and vice versa), but still keep them as separate products. They seem to be headed in this direction anyway with how they are breaking out iTunes into separate components - Movies and TV shows might be next.

I wonder if they'll get into the Live TV market as well - last I heard they couldn't come to agreements with all of the providers they needed so they scrapped it. They'll probably just stick to on demand content.
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lunarworks said:
Anyway, any project from them should be good.
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Yeah Planet of the Apps was amazing /s
 
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I get the feeling Apple had difficulty putting together their a la carte television strategy so they're going a different route.

Instead of gathering other media content, selling that, and then creating their own, Apple seems like they're going to create their own content and hope the demand will influence other networks to come under their service umbrella. Its a reverse strategy of what Netflix did but could work provided Apple's content is good.

Given that the Amazing Stories show runner has already left because Apple wants things to be family friendly and streamable in their stores, I wonder what the mass appeal will be.
 
scotth23 said:
I get the feeling Apple had difficulty putting together their a la carte television strategy so they're going a different route.

Instead of gathering other media content, selling that, and then creating their own, Apple seems like they're going to create their own content and hope the demand will influence other networks to come under their service umbrella. Its a reverse strategy of what Netflix did but could work provided Apple's content is good.

Given that the Amazing Stories show runner has already left because Apple wants things to be family friendly and streamable in their stores, I wonder what the mass appeal will be.
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Apple has already gathered other medial content which they both sell and stream for rent. Most of the content in the world can be licensed by anyone.

BTW, 99.9% of public doesn't even know or care what a show runner is and won't notice that a member of the production staff was replaced when they watch Amazing stories. Success of Amazing Stories won't turn on folks saying they would like it better if only it had more nudity, graphic violence and sex scenes, assuming that report is even true.
 
truthertech said:
Apple has already gathered other medial content which they both sell and stream for rent. Most of the content in the world can be licensed by anyone.
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Renting material at $5 a pop or whatever and subscription services are two different animals. Apple is hoping to replace the cable box but the cable companies don't want to give up any more money to Apple than they have to. Apple is likely trying to get into the Netflix game which means they need content outside of their own production. Maybe they work deals like Netflix has with studios for movies etc but if they want the cable channels, they need a different tactic than what hasn't worked so far.

truthertech said:
BTW, 99.9% of public doesn't even know or care what a show runner is and won't notice that a member of the production staff was replaced when they watch Amazing stories. Success of Amazing Stories won't turn on folks saying they would like it better if only it had more nudity, graphic violence and sex scenes, assuming that report is even true.
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The point wasn't whether the show runner would be noticeable to the public. The point was the TONE of the material that Apple seems to want to release. If that report is correct, it will be very PG based which is different from what most would consider to be the popular style of serialized television at this stage.
 
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HiVolt said:
None of these Apple produced shows are gonna succeed if they're only available on Apple devices.
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There are 1b Apple devices activated around the world. These shows will live or die on their own merits, not because people can't access them.

I must say though, so far none of the show concepts posted on MR and elsewhere have really piqued my interest. I was about to skip over this thread until I saw the giraffe. That's what Apple need, really, more giraffe. Worked for Big Sick, would work for Apple.
 
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