And we are with another wave of news about the “Apple Studios”! (Which, in this case, is an absolutely hypothetical name that I have just created to refer to the company's investments in the original content area.)
The first (and excellent) news of the day, directly from New York Times, that Ma signed a contract to exclusively produce and exhibit a new series of Damien Chazelle the newest Hollywood prodigy, director / screenwriter for “La La Land” and “Whiplash”, and the youngest person in history to win an Oscar for Best Director (and for Best Film, never mind).
As we are used to, there is still not much information about the series, but we know that Chazelle plans to write and direct all the episodes, that they will have an hour each, the number of them, however, is still a mystery as well.
The filmmaker, on the other hand, is far from having signed an exclusive contract with Apple at the same time, he has also worked out the details of a musical series set in Paris, called "The Eddy", to be carried out in partnership with Netflix. Between these two projects and your next film "First Man", about astronaut Neil Armstrong, it looks like Chazelle has a couple of busy years ahead of her.
· • ·
On the Apple side, it is not only the attraction of important talent from the artistic area that counts on hiring executives and professionals from the content area as much or more important. And they seem to be doing it well too: as informed by deadline, Ma is bringing to its field Dana Tuinier, an important executive producer in Hollywood.
Before arriving in Cupertino, Tuinier had a brief stint as vice president of development and original programming at Paramount Network, and before that, she was director of programming at Fox, where she oversaw programs such as "Cosmos", "New Girl" and "Glee". At Apple, the idea is that she will focus her attention on the comedy series starring Kristen Wiig and help attract other talent to future contracts.
· • ·
Finally, I would like to quote here a news item, but a very interesting text from the former editor in chief of Macworld, Jason Snell. In the editorial, the journalist lists the challenges that Apple needs to overcome in order to build an original content platform from scratch since, apparently, no one in Cupertino wants to buy an existing service.
Firstly, Snell says that Apple plays a dangerous game in its series purchase model as is well known, the major broadcasters work with “pilots”, in which the producers of a certain series make a first episode and, only after evaluating the result, companies decide whether or not to buy the idea. Apple, for its part, is already signing contracts for entire seasons, which saves time and money, but it may be a long shot that any of these products will prove to be a disaster, after all?
Other points of tension listed by Snell include the challenge to build a user base since everyone already has their preferences for Netflix or HBO or Hulu or a limited company and a possibility to make Apple Music their original content platform, effectively making that its millions of subscribers to the service streaming automatically join the initiative. He also questions whether Apple will make this service something exclusive for users of its products, such as iMessage, or whether it will open the platform to everyone, as is already the case with Apple Music.
It is worth reading the text as a whole and then, of course, sharing your opinions with us below.
via AppleInsider, Cult of Mac
