Commissar SFLUFAN Posted July 22 Share Posted July 22 Apple Tries to Rein In Hollywood Spending After Years of Losses Quote After spending more than $20 billion to produce original TV shows and movies that not a lot of people watch, Apple is starting to refine its strategy in Hollywood. Based on interviews with more than a dozen people, including former employees, current employees and business partners, Apple services boss Eddy Cue has been having regular meetings with studio chiefs Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht to go over budgets, pushing them to exert more control over spending on projects. Van Amburg and Erlicht have told some of their top creative partners that they want to change their reputation as the biggest spender in town, according to these people. Apple doesn’t buy the most projects in Hollywood — that is still Netflix. But it splurges on individual titles. The studio spent more than $500 million combined on movies from directors Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott and Matthew Vaughn, and upward of $250 million on the World War II miniseries Masters of the Air, one of more than a dozen new series released this year. Those pictures were all disappointments at the box office, and only Killers of the Flower Moon registered in Nielsen’s rankings of the most-popular streaming titles. Masters of the Air delivered a smaller US audience than House of Ninjas, a Netflix show in Japanese, according to Nielsen. Even so, it’s the only new Apple show this year to appear in Nielsen’s rankings. Apple is spending billions of dollars a year on original programming that has received strong reviews and many awards nominations. But its streaming service is attracting just 0.2% of TV viewing in the US. Apple TV+ generates less viewing in one month than Netflix does in one day. “Subscriber growth has been weak, with the platform’s original content a fraction of what rivals offer,” Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Geetha Ranganathan and Kevin Near wrote in a recent note. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kal-El814 Posted July 22 Share Posted July 22 As someone who has a Mac, iPad, iPhone, Apple TV, and Apple Watch, the discoverability for Apple's own content on Apple TV+ is genuinely very bad. I don't know if it's because they fear antitrust stuff (or if that would even apply in this scenario) but I have to imagine this is part of the problem. I didn't realize Masters of the Air existed until I went into an Apple Store for a screen repair a couple weeks ago. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLeon Posted July 22 Share Posted July 22 As long as they keep making Severance and Slow Horses… 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commissar SFLUFAN Posted July 23 Author Share Posted July 23 1 hour ago, TheLeon said: As long as they keep making Severance and Slow Horses… The second season of Severance supposedly cost $20 million/episode, so... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skillzdadirecta Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 Fly Me To the Moon was a HUGE flop. Makes sense... Apple has spent a ton of money on movies and shows and hasn't really broke in the way they'd like. A lot of people still don't watch their shows and only a couple have really broken through. I doubt they'll get out of the business entirely, but it's going to be scaled back big time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kal-El814 Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 1 hour ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said: The second season of Severance supposedly cost $20 million/episode, so... Some of that has gotta be COVID related delays and such... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeneticBlueprint Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 Just don’t let it affect Foundation Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 3 minutes ago, GeneticBlueprint said: Just don’t let it affect For All Mankind Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greatoneshere Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 3 hours ago, GeneticBlueprint said: Just don’t let it affect Foundation 3 hours ago, Jason said: Just don’t let it affect For All Mankind Hopefully it doesn't affect either show, at least For All Mankind just announced a spinoff show, so that's a good sign. But Foundation is already experiencing it as Apple cut the budget during filming of season 3, causing showrunner David S. Goyer to leave the show during production. They finished season 3 filming but not a great sign for season 4 once season 3 releases. Goyer leaving may be a blessing in disguise though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spork3245 Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 *looks at shows you guys are hoping are unaffected* Yea, no… Just give me more Shrinking and Platonic, please. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperSpreader Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 12 hours ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said: Subscriber growth has been weak Capitalism demands infinite growth but these damn millennials don't have enough kids! Damn cat ladies! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperSpreader Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 9 hours ago, Kal-El814 said: Some of that has gotta be COVID related delays and such... I demand the best catering bro Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spork3245 Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 9 hours ago, Kal-El814 said: Some of that has gotta be COVID related delays and such... Do you mean writer/actor strike delays? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kal-El814 Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 29 minutes ago, Spork3245 said: Do you mean writer/actor strike delays? Yeah, that. Time has no meaning anymore, got my wires crossed. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LazyPiranha Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 A friend of mine built the sets for Severance at the Bell Works Lab. His take on the matter was basically that Severance was one of Apple’s few notable successes and at some point they just had to throw whatever money it needed at it to justify their whole push into content. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Massdriver Posted July 23 Share Posted July 23 I've been fairly impressed with every Apple show I've watched. Severance (my favorite on Apple), Ted Lasso, For All Mankind, and at times Foundation. Foundation is uneven, but it has some high peaks. I hope Apple cuts in the right places, which would be these ridiculously expensive movies. Keep up the high budget TV shows. I want to check out Silo which also costed a fortune to make. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sblfilms Posted July 24 Share Posted July 24 Without getting into the details of meetings I had with very senior people on the film side at Apple…uhhh, these people did not have any actual plan for how to make money doing this. I’m honestly surprised they went as long as they did just blowing money out, but I guess when you have the money printer that is iPhone, you can go a pretty long time without a clear direction. Reminds me a bit of Microsoft and Xbox post 360. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperSpreader Posted July 24 Share Posted July 24 Plans!? Just throw some MBAs at it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TwinIon Posted July 24 Share Posted July 24 It's been clear for a while that they didn't have any clue how to make money doing this, or at least they didn't care. I've enjoyed a number of the Apple TV shows, but the one commonality has been they've seemed pretty expensive and I've seen very little conversation around them. I just started watching Loot, which is fine, but looks much more expensive than your typical workplace comedy. Obviously Foundation and For All Mankind have a lot of effects. The Morning Show was famously expensive. I hadn't seen that Severence cost $20M an episode, but if you've got a corporate overlord who doesn't care about money and you run one of the few shows that has gotten wider attention, I can totally believe that you'd eat as much budget as possible. The movie side of things seems like it's even worse. I suppose they've only released three movies in theaters, but two of them are big budget flops, and the third has got to be one of the lowest grossing Best Picture winners ever. I'm excited to see F1 and Wolfs, but all we know for sure is the former is very expensive. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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