Recently, Apple leaned heavily on its movie business and started producing films with some of Hollywood’s top actors, such as Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Matt Damon, and many more. Similarly, Apple announced its latest movie, “Wolfs,” starring veteran actors like Brad Pitt and George Clooney. Apple had to fight a bidding war in 2021 to get the rights to this movie.
Apple initially planned to release the movie in thousands of theatres around the world. However, this month, just six weeks before the movie’s theatrical release, Apple announced a sudden change in plans. Apple has announced that the movie will be shown on a limited number of screens, only in the US, and then, after a week in theatres, it will be available on the company’s streaming platform, Apple TV+. However, this might hurt their relationship with the actors and the director, as Mr. George Clooney mentioned last year when he said, “Brad and I made the deal to do that movie where we gave the money back to make sure that we had a theatrical release.”
The head of features for Apple Original Films, Matt Dentler, shared his views on the development and said, “Wolfs’ is the kind of big event movie that makes Apple TV+ such an exceptional home for the best in entertainment. Releasing the movie to theatres before making it widely available to Apple TV+ customers brings the best of both worlds to audiences.” However, the director of the movie seemed a little less content with the decision. Jon Watts, the director, told Vanity Fair, “The theatrical experience has really made an impression on me of how valuable this thing is and how important it is. I always thought of this as a theatrical movie. We made it to be seen in theaters, and I think that’s the best way to see it.” This strategy change came after a string of recent box office failures Apple witnessed with its theatrical releases in recent years.
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A few movies that showed a lackluster performance in recent years include movies like “Killers of the Flower Moon” (costing $200 million and grossing $157 million) and “Napoleon” (costing $200 million and grossing $221 million), the studio has struggled to recoup its investments. Even with star-studded casts like Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum in “Fly Me to the Moon” (costing $100 million and grossing just $40 million), the film failed to capture audiences and underperformed at the box office. This is the reason why Apple suddenly changed its strategy. The impact of this strategy is yet to be seen and will be evident once the data becomes available.
