They could but look what it’s doing to its reputation. Reputation is everything when you are that size.
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Report: Apple TV+ Pivoting Movie Strategy Amid Disappointing Performance
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The art selling world is also a money laundering scheme. Just look into free ports. I would say money laundering is likely spot on or close to the truth. Also see: video games. That Concord game was definitely some sort of money laundering or embezzlement scheme.
Wow, I had no idea. Game of Thrones was famously $15 million per episode and I thought that was ridiculous....I still lost interest somewhere during season four.
No episodic show is worth anywhere near that, and I have no interest in watching Wolfs.
Anyway- movie theaters are going the way of Blockbuster rentals. They’re a dying breed
Spaffing a billion quid on crap films is better than paying tax.
It’s doing nothing to their reputation, the company thrives and have very high consumer rating in the real world after all, it’s only in some tiny forums eco chamber that a few dozens people keeps whining about them (while still buying their products!)
The movies just haven't been good enough to get me to the theater.
Apple is retreating from its ambitious plans for wide theatrical movie releases after several of its high-budget films failed to meet box office expectations, Bloomberg reports.
Apple is believed to have initially set aside $1 billion annually to produce big-budget films for cinemas, aiming to compete with traditional Hollywood studios. The company's goal was ostensibly to release a series of blockbuster movies that could drive ticket sales, win prestigious awards, and elevate its profile in the film industry.
Films such as Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon, Ridley Scott's Napoleon, and Matthew Vaughn's Argylle were expected to perform strongly at the box office, but each delivered disappointing results. As a result, Apple is now said to be scaling back these plans with a growing emphasis on using limited theatrical windows to qualify for awards while primarily marketing its films as streaming titles.
One of the biggest signs of this shift was the cancellation of the wide global release of Wolfs, an action comedy starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt. The film had originally been slated for a broad theatrical debut in thousands of cinemas around the world. Instead, it was released in a limited number of theaters before becoming available for streaming on Apple TV+ on September 27.
Apple's leadership has reportedly been seeking to rein in costs across its entertainment division. While the company is said to remain committed to its $1 billion annual film budget, it will now focus on producing fewer high-budget films, reducing the number of theatrical releases, and scaling down the average production cost of its movies. According to sources familiar with the company's plans, Apple will continue to produce about a dozen films per year, most with budgets under $100 million.
Only one or two major titles each year will be given larger budgets and wide theatrical releases, such as the upcoming film F1, starring Brad Pitt, which is set for a global release in June 2025. F1 is expected to be Apple's most expensive movie to date, with a reported production budget of over $300 million.
Article Link: Report: Apple TV+ Pivoting Movie Strategy Amid Disappointing Performance
And yet the effects in the Acolyte were sub par, no crazy stunts, and no big name actors. Some day it will be interesting to learn where all that money went. I can't wait for that bombshell to go off.
I am very much looking forward to F1! Anyone watching the 6 season hit documentary “Formula One: Drive to survive” on Netflix is likely interested in this film!
It kind of feels like Tim Cook commissioned and greenlit a lot of the content on TV+ personally. It‘s well made, but lacks a certain kind of fire, personality, quirkyness or humor. That seems to work well for a mass product like phones, but not for entertainment.
That show did NOT look like it spent the budget well. Disney is doing strange stuff.
Looking cheap was never the issue of Apple TV+. All of their shows are beautifully produced.
That's not enough. Many of them are just pretentious and/or dull.
Severance is amazing, their best show to date. It's also very niche.
It’s mind-boggling how much Severance cost Apple. Each episode had a $20 million price tag, adding up to $180 million for the first season. Considering most of the show takes place in a simple room and a winding hallway, it’s pretty astounding.
But this seems to be the problem theatres in general are facing, and the dilemma a lot of movie producers are now dealing with. People just aren't willing to pay increasingly higher prices to watch most movies in the theatres and will wait as long as it takes to watch at home because their home setup in a lot of cases is now just as good. In that light, Apple's movie to direct more of their productions to streaming rather than waste time outside of awards season on theatre releases make sense.
The movies are bad (but so are Netflix, Amazon movies); the shows are top. Only Amazon comes close or is better at times.
I watched a couple of episodes of Amazing Stories and... well, I can't remember anything about it, which says it all, really. However, Hollywierd has an obsession with trying to re-hash successful ideas - and, at the time, successful & critically acclaimed SF anthology == Black Mirror == Dark & edgy adult social commentary. They even did another anthology - Circuit Breakers that was even more blatantly "Black Mirror for Kids" - with predictable results.
However, I think the most obvious "what possible confusion of ideas made them think that would work?!" case was "Time Bandits remake starring Phoebe from Friends". It was actually better than it had any right to be but that's hardly a recommendation. Turns out that Pythonesque humour is actually really hard to do well - nobody expected that! Didn't they noticed how well Willow worked out on Disney?
On the other hand ATV+ has had a run of really top-tier shows - Severance and Slow Horses being the stand-outs for me, as well as For All Mankind (once you accept it's not primarily a space opera), Bad Sisters, Shining Girls... Silo is looking like a pretty solid adaptation that doesn't completely throw away the book. Foundation has the makings of a good space opera - if only they focussed on the screenwriters' more original ideas and stopped pretending it was an adaptation of anything.
My impression of Apple TV+ is that when they are good, they are very, very good, but they've had a few serious turkeys that are hard to excuse - and their movie output is wall-to-wall, derivative "meh" and failed Oscar bait.
I agree.
Stop chasing meaningless awards and stop chasing big names who will never pay back the investment.
Wolfs was a failed mix of Ocean 11 meets Reservoir Dogs. Waste of talent. Argyll was even worse.
The TV Series (Slow Horses!) are much better imho.
The TV Series (Slow Horses!) are much better imho.
I still love the movie theatre and will always go to see big stuff that I personally am interested to see ASAP to avoid spoilers etc.
Ill mainly go to see the MCU movies in the cinema and made sure to see Deadpool and Wolverine soon after release to avoid the spoilers that frankly Marvel themselves put out a week later ruining cameos etc.
However, Marvel themselves caused a lot of the problems by the ever decreasing window between theatrical release and Disney+. In recent memory I believe it was just ridiculous for Dr Strange Multiverse of Madness when it appeared on Disney+ 6 weeks after it opened in theatres. That was WAY TOO SOON and when people experience that then going forward they are significant less inclined to go to the cinema with all the expense and potential disruption from badly behaved moviegoers etc etc etc
Its a problem that the movie companies have made themselves.
These paint by number movies like Netflix Red Heat and Ghosted; or Apple’s Wolfs are beyond just bad; they are infuriating.