Steven Mallas, Seeking Alpha (free regwall) on Apple and Steve Spielberg inking a deal to bring the series of Amazing Stories to Apple TV:
The plan is for there to be 10 episodes at a cost of $5 million each. That’s nothing to Apple, a drop in the bucket.
And:
Spielberg could shift some of his slate over to streaming services that are aching to differentiate themselves from the pack, primarily the alpha Netflix. Again, here’s where Apple and its cash hoard and its enormous market cap and its platforms that need to be programmed come in – they could help Spielberg distribute concepts that might not find a place elsewhere. Netflix arguably already does this. Think the recent Stephen King adaptation Gerald’s Game. On Netflix, it stands out. In theaters, maybe it wouldn’t have. There’s no way that Cook and Spielberg don’t understand that.
The whole article is interesting, especially when Mallas chews on the possibility of Apple buying the rights to James Bond, both existing movies and the rights to new content:
Comparison was made to Disney and its purchases of Marvel/Lucasfilm; Lucasfilm was all about Star Wars, and that cost billions of dollars to consummate. If either Amazon or Apple won the rights to Bond, then those companies could release new films and episodic series on their respective platforms, as well as release movies to theaters on a worldwide basis.
And:
Bond, though, doesn’t necessarily, in my mind, lend itself to capital investment in the same way that Star Wars or Marvel do. I’m not sure about how valuable a merchandising program for Bond would be, as an example.
Interesting comparison. Not sure Netflix thinks about merchandising at all.
I dunno, Apple could introduce a whole line of Q’s gadgets for the masses. Perhaps, a new Apple Watch, that’s used by Bond, that projects 3D augmented reality to help him escape a near death situation. Or perhaps, a cool electric car that drives itself.
I don’t doubt there are great ideas for modernizing Bond, floating around at transmedia-producer consultancies. But I’ll still be surprised to see any such update that could bring me back to the franchise in a meaningful way.
It’ll be interesting to see Amazing Stories coming back after all these years. I enjoyed it as a kid, but even then didn’t think it was truly “Spielberg,” it felt more like a knock off version. Of course the technology is better now, Spielberg has grown considerably, and the standards for quality writing on TV (and beyond) are much higher. Cautiously optimistic!