The Hollywood Reporter:
The world’s biggest company is officially taking meetings as everyone from Jennifer Aniston to Steven Spielberg salivates over selling the first big show. One studio chief says, “Who wouldn’t want to be the ‘Mad Men’ or ‘House of Cards’ on Apple?”
And:
Though Apple isn’t looking to replicate the pace or scale of rival Netflix’s $6 billion annual spend, it is eager to be in the prestige content business in a significant way. Per multiple sources briefed on the company’s plans, its executives are looking for big, smart, splashy dramas, with at least one citing Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and The Crown as models. And though there are still plenty of questions — first and foremost, how will an Apple show be distributed? — talent is lining up to provide options.
And:
At press time, the company had bids out on only a handful of projects, including an update of Steven Spielberg’s 1980s sci-fi, horror, fantasy anthology series, Amazing Stories, and a morning show drama starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, according to several involved.
Apple is entering new territory here. The good news is, they’ve long proved they can take on something completely new, dig in, learn the critical lessons, then produce quality product. Given what we’ve seen so far, it’s certainly fair to be skeptical, but I like the moves Apple is making and look forward to watching them master this space.
Could someone explain an argument behind such a strategy?
Why isn’t it enough to provide the best possible aggregation experience?
It differentiates Apple Music from Spotify.
All the options sound bad to me. Especially, the morning news show drama. It would have to be incredible to get me to care about those stars about that subject. Does the typical Apple customer watch Morning Joe or Today? Amazing Stories also doesn’t excite me. All sounds like me too crap. They need Mad Men NOT House of Cards.
Something new would be better than something familiar.
Pretty sure we’re talking about an expansion of Apple’s original content initiative, not necessarily programming exclusively tied to Apple Music.
Can the shows earn enough money to be viable? They will not be available on any other platform, so Apple will have to hope the shows are so big it generates huge sales for the Apple TV and the corresponding streaming service.
Nope, at least initially part of Apple Music. At least until they rename Apple Music to Apple Media or something.
Apple could outspend Netflix and it wouldn’t make a dent in their financials (nobody could ramp up production that quick so Apple won’t anytime soon). A viable video strategy is table stakes for everyone (meaning Facebook, Amazon, Google) today. Even Spotify made a deal with Hulu.
House of Cards? Spacey and I think the guy who created Ally McBeal.
Never got into Cards. Stranger Things is the only Netflix show I’ve been impressed by.
That’s why the “Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon” sounds so bad. Sounds like more “Planet of the Apps”. Derivative AND poorly executed.
I would guess because the best possible aggregation experience means the content owners playing ball. Lots of them insist on limitations, cumbersome DRM-laced sign-ins, etc. And even then, the content would still be available through Roku, Amazon, Google, etc.
We’ll see. It’s interesting how much you’ve deduced about a notional new show from just a few words. 😉
Regardless of your personal feelings, House of Cards was an extraordinary early success for Netflix.
It’s probably a good thing that Van Amburg and Erlicht aren’t limiting themselves to just the kinds of programs that you or I happen to like.
I like anything that’s near great to great. I’m less and less interested in good (Fargo) I liked Girls, I loved Deadwood. I’m interested in seeing something I don’t know about treated intelligently, hopefully with some humor even if it’s a drama. The only thing I’ve seen on Netflix which has been great is Stranger Things. I watched a bit of both HoC and OiNB and they have great production values but aren’t Sopranos (or other HBO of that time period), Mad Men, Breaking Bad level of show.
There’s so many people doing decent quality stuff with amazing production values it will take some luck for Apple to get a Mad Men and cut through the noise.
True, Mad Men would have rung the same bells.
“I like anything that’s near great to great.”
Whatever that means to anyone other than yourself. See my second paragraph above.
That’s what I was addressing. I like anything from Girls to Deadwood, Sopranos to Stranger Things.
I’m not a standard issue nerd into Star Wars and Thrones.
The further afield they go the more I’ll probably like it.
The politics and personalities of a morning news show sounds pretty meh to me. It sounds like the most you could hope for is an Aaron Sorkin kind of thing. Which yea, that’s not my personal thing.
I’m not interested in talking about the likely hood of finding popular success with a show. I don’t give a sh*t about that.
For the purposes of Apple’s success with this new venture, it doesn’t matter what you—as an individual—care about. Not nearly as much as you seem to believe, anyway.
And you apparently don’t genuinely like “anything from Girls to Deadwood, Sopranos to Stranger Things.” You’ve been very specific about your indifference to some excellent new television work that had absolutely nothing to do with HBO.
If you’re claiming to represent the tastes of a wide variety of people who’ll be necessary for Apple’s success in television production, I have some disappointing news for you.
Yea, I’m very indifferent to what I would call the middle or mediocre end of the “golden age” TV shows the HoC and OitnB and Fargo (season two being an exception).
There’s just a limit to how much TV I want to watch and I’m sick of trying to keep up with it and feel like the effort hasn’t been worth it.
I don’t care about HBO in particular. Nothing there has caught my eye in a while. I watched “Big Little Lies” and didn’t really care for that or get what the big deal was.
I’m not claiming anything. I’m offering an opinion. You seem like many people to be offended by opinions.
If anything, I’m extrapolating from personal opinions in comments on a story like this. It seemed as though you were predicting failure for Apple’s attempts to create programming you didn’t personally care for.
The Aniston/Witherspoon show seems unlikely to be a really good show to me in an objective sense (admittedly based on nothing but was was described here). I don’t care if it’s a popular failure or success and I wouldn’t pretend to be able to predict that. I would be willing to just for fun, though.
I like when really great stuff comes along like Motown or Mad Men or Apple or Monty Python or whatever and there’s something fun to do and to feel like there’s a counter-weight to the awful stuff in the world.
and not just a counter-weight to the awful stuff in the world but just the endless amounts of mediocrity that’s dumped out there.