Malcolm Owen
Apple has picked up a new series produced by famed movie director M. Night Shyamalan, a ten-episode straight-to-series psychological thriller that will be added to Apple's constantly-increasing collection of streaming video content.
Few details about the series have been revealed, but Variety reports it will be written by Tony Basgallop and executive produced by Shyamalan. Shyamalan's Blinding Edge Pictures will be producing the series, consisting of ten 30-minute episodes, and Shyamalan himself will reportedly direct the first episode.
The show will be Shyamalan's second television production, after executive producing Fox's "Wayward Pines." He is best known for the blockbuster movies "The Sixth Sense" and "Signs," and is also working on "Glass," a sequel to the recent film "Split" and connected to "Unbreakable" from the year 2000.
Basgallop has worked on shows including "24: Legacy," "24: Live Another Day," "Inside Men," and "EastEnders," as well as creating "Hotel Babylon." Jason Blumenthal, Todd Black, and Steve Tisch of production company Escape Artists are also named as executive producers, and Taylor Latham will be co-executive producing the show.
The new commission is the latest in a line of shows Apple is buying into as part of its ongoing $1 billion investment into original programming and show production.
In 2017, Apple reportedly handed a blank check to Drake to make movies and shows for the firm, and signed a deal with "Battlestar Galactica" and "Star Trek" alum Ronald D. Moore for a new space drama. Apple is also thought to be paying $5 million per episode for a ten-episode season of "Amazing Stories," reviving the Amblin Television and NBCUniversal sci-fi anthology.
Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine studio is reportedly linked to three projects with Apple, including an untitled drama based on a morning show production starring Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston. The second is a development of Nichelle Tramble Spellman's "Are You Sleeping," said to be starring Octavia Spencer, while the third is a sketch comedy show starring Kristen Wiig.
Apple signed a deal with "La La Land" writer and director Damien Chazelle in late January, quickly followed by a deal on February 8 involving an anthology series called "Little America" focusing on immigrants in the United States.
AppleInsider Staff
Oliver Haslam
Andrew O'Hara
Wesley Hilliard
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Christine McKee
14 Comments
I see dead money.
My largest question is about the long term strategy of delivery. I think with all this original content it will outgrow the iTunes environment and might be confusing to users if it doesn't. Is the goal to establish a service like Netflix, where you pay a monthly subscription to access the content or will it be sold via iTunes or free as part of an Apple Music subscription. I think they need to reassess their content delivery as it's becoming increasingly more complicated as march away from simply doing music continues.
I didn't realise he worked on EastEnders. Now the whole reliance on plot twists makes more sense. Also the fact that most of the "twists" turn out to be pretty obvious. Hell, some of them are visible from orbit.
Has this dude produced anything even okay in like 10 years?
“Split” from last year gets a 75% from Rotten Tomatoes. I haven’t seen it but I’ve heard it is pretty good.