Apple Worldwide Video's LA office poaches Amazon Studios exec Morgan Wandell

Apple's increasingly aggressive moves to establish internal production of creative content now include hiring Morgan Wandell from Amazon Studios.

Apple earlier made waves in June when it hired two executives from Sony Pictures Television: Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, responsible for programming including "Breaking Bad" and "The Goldbergs."

According to a report by Cynthia Littleton for Variety, the duo had also worked with Wandell in the development of "Sneaky Pete," a Sony Pictures pilot that moved to Amazon.

Wandell, who has worked at Amazon since 2013, initially worked in drama development on "The Man in the High Castle" and "Goliath," and the upcoming shows "Carnival Row," "Jack Ryan" and "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel." Prior to joining Amazon, he served as head of drama at ABC Studios.

Last year, he shifted to a role in international creative development at Amazon, and will be handling a similar responsibility at Apple. Wandell will be reporting to Erlicht and Van Amburg, who are now the Chief Content Officers of Apple's Worldwide Video business. Those executives report to Eddy Cue, Apple's Senior VP of Internet Software and Services.

The recruiting effort was reportedly "in the works" for months, prior to the removal of Amazon Studios president Roy Price related to allegations of sexual harassment.

Apple Worldwide Video is based in the company's Culver City office located near Sony Pictures and the La Cienega Expo facility that Apple is rumored to be leasing for video production. Culver City is south of Hollywood, between Santa Monica and downtown Los Angeles.

After some initial experiments related to Apple Music features, Apple has made original content a significant priority. Just as the company's App Store titles (including Final Cut Pro, Keynote and Garage Band) have created exclusive content promoting the sales of Macs and iOS devices, original video production is seen as a way to bolster Apple Music subscription programming and sales of hardware including Apple TV.

While Netflix, Hulu, Disney— and soon Amazon— content is viewable on Apple TV, original Apple Music content is exclusive to Apple's hardware and can't be played on Amazon Fire, Google, Roku and Microsoft products.

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11 Comments

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tokyojimu 17 Years · 531 comments

About 7 years ago

I think Apple's move to making original content is a mistake (though for some strange reason, they never asked me), as it reduces their ability to cut deals to carry content from other providers since now they are a competitor, not just a distributor.

cali 10 Years · 3494 comments

"While Netflix, Hulu, Disney-- and soon Amazon-- content is viewable on Apple TV, original Apple Music content is exclusive to Apple's hardware and can't be played on Amazon Fire, Google, Roku and Microsoft products."

With Movies Anywhere or like I call it "iTunes Everywhere" Apple better get working on

original Apple-exclusive content. Now that I can getable my iTunes Movies on a s**t $50 fire stick and Apple not taking gaming seriously there's less reason to own an Apple TV. Hopefully they can make some great content that persuades people to own an Apple TV. First-party Apple game content would be amazing!

tokyojimu said:

I think Apple's move to making original content is a mistake (though for some strange reason, they never asked me), as it reduces their ability to cut deals to carry content from other providers since now they are a competitor, not just a distributor.

Hell no it's not a mistake. Apple is gonna lose ground if they don't give their services attention. iTunes is becoming a pastime with a lot of people like Walkman and AOL.

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boltsfan17 12 Years · 2294 comments

tokyojimu said:

I think Apple's move to making original content is a mistake (though for some strange reason, they never asked me), as it reduces their ability to cut deals to carry content from other providers since now they are a competitor, not just a distributor.

Apple doesn't have deals with content providers like Hulu and Netflix. Apple just gets a cut if you subscribe through Apple. Companies like Disney need Apple since they don't make hardware. I highly doubt a company like Disney wouldn't want to have their content available on hundreds of millions of iOS/Apple TV devices. With so much competition in the streaming device market, Apple needs to invest more in original content.

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asdasd 21 Years · 5682 comments

I subscribe to amazon. I got some free or cheap deal. It’s atrocious compared to Netflix.

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rogifan_new 9 Years · 4297 comments

boltsfan17 said:

tokyojimu said:

I think Apple's move to making original content is a mistake (though for some strange reason, they never asked me), as it reduces their ability to cut deals to carry content from other providers since now they are a competitor, not just a distributor.

Apple doesn't have deals with content providers like Hulu and Netflix. Apple just gets a cut if you subscribe through Apple. Companies like Disney need Apple since they don't make hardware. I highly doubt a company like Disney wouldn't want to have their content available on hundreds of millions of iOS/Apple TV devices. With so much competition in the streaming device market, Apple needs to invest more in original content.

And yet Disney isn’t part of the 4K deal Apple announced at the September event. Apple needs these companies as much as they need Apple. The Apple ecosystem isn’t as compelling if they don’t have access to all this content for their devices.