By: Nick Gambino
After spending the past few years making TV shows and smaller movies, Apple is planning to spend upwards of $1 billion a year to make blockbuster movies for theaters. This is not confirmed by Apple but is according to a report from Bloomberg.
This is a far cry from CODA which only got a limited run in theaters, though it also won the coveted Best Picture Oscar, helping to bolster Apple’s confidence in their cinema output. By embracing the theater model the tech company is hoping to garner more attention for their Apple TV+ streaming service.
It’s honestly a smart move. Create bigger content, bigger events and bigger spectacles that bring people out in droves. Make money from that and then put it exclusively on your own streaming service to attract more subscribers. It’s the old tried-and-true movie distribution model but instead of ending up on VHS or DVD, it ends up on streaming. It’s not difficult to grasp how this could be a good thing for streamers, yet so far, Apple is the only one embracing it like this.
Apple is looking to partner up with distributors that can help make this happen right away. Upcoming movies from acclaimed filmmakers are already slotted to get the theater treatment. These are 2023 movies like Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese), Napoleon (Ridley Scott) and Argylle (Matthew Vaughn).
Now, these days, movies don’t stay in theaters for as long as they used to, even the ones that aren’t funded by streamers. Back in the day, a movie could play in a theater for over a year and nobody would blink an eye. Back then, it also used to take a good year and a half before we’d get the movie on home video.
It’s a different time. Movies play for about a month and that’s it. You can expect Apple Original Films to do about the same, but at least they’ll play in thousands of theaters as opposed to a limited run in a couple dozen. And they’ll get an exclusive theater window, not dropped on the streaming service the same day. Remember when HBO Max did that and angered 99.9% of the filmmaking community?
Are you excited for Apple Original Films? Let us know in the comments below!
