Apple spending up to $30M per movie to make award-winning Apple TV+

Hollywood sources say that Apple is approaching Oscar contending filmmakers and offering $5 million to $30 million per project, to build an award-winning stable of content.

Apple is looking to produce half a dozen low-budget films per year, for its Apple TV+ service, which have the potential to be worthy of Oscar nominations, according to sources in Hollywood. The company has been targeting what the sources describe as "elevated" directors and other filmmakers, and offering them budgets of between $5 million and $30 million per film.

"They are taking meetings and hiring," once source told the New York Post.

The source compared Apple's move to being to create films like those of Focus Features, which made "BlacKkKlansman", "Boy Erased" and "Dallas Buyers Club." It's not known whether any deals have yet been made, but the same source says that Hollywood is not impressed with Apple.

"They are literally anxious and clueless about what they really want to do," said the Hollywood insider. "Half the [Apple] culture hates them making content, and the other half wants to meet stars."

The New York Post claims that Apple has the problem that it lacks a library of existing material where rival Disney is replete with old films and TV.

Analyst Dan Ives said that he expects Apple will eventually have to buy some studio's library.

"It's a content arms race," he said. "They have $250 billion of dry powder, and they generate $60 billion a year in free cash flow."

One issue that may be making studios and filmmakers less keen on reaching all Apple users, however, is how Apple is allegedly trying to micro-manage projects.

"Tim Cook is giving notes and getting involved," one producer told the Post. "They are making big changes, firing and hiring new writers. There's a lack of clarity on what they want."

Reportedly one of Tim Cook's repeated notes given to producers is "Don't be so mean!" and Apple seemingly wants only positive views of technology.

Any library or new project will be shown on the Apple TV+ service, which means it could reach everyone with an Apple device. As shown at its March 2019 sneak peek, Apple already has many new dramas and comedies in production, including "For All Mankind" by Ronald D. Moore plus Oprah Winfrey documentaries.

Apple TV+ is expected to launch in the Fall.

Latest Exclusives

Latest comparisons

21 Comments

beowulfschmidt 2349 comments · 12 Years

About 5 years ago

Given what's been considered "Oscar worthy" lately, I'm hoping they do better than that. Much better.

entropys 4303 comments · 13 Years

Reminds of the eighties when those Japanese executives decided they wanted to get into Hollywood.

Put it me in the half who hates Apple making content. Competing with their customers.

trashman69 161 comments · 9 Years

I hate to say it - but Apple seem to be making all the wrong moves in the content game.
(From G rated content to Planet of the Apps to an Oprah documentary on #Metoo Movement????

All of this just seems so obvious.

I personally think Disney+ hit it out of the park with amount of Content / Price.

As for Netflix - At least they are pushing boundaries - and trying.

Anyway - its early days..

wizard69 13358 comments · 21 Years

beowulfschmidt said:

Given what's been considered "Oscar worthy" lately, I'm hoping they do better than that. Much better.

So true!

The interesting thing here is that cost doesn’t imply quality at all in film mAking. On the flip side if these numbers are true Apple isn’t investing a lot per movie. You would think that they would look at each proposal individually and base budget on feasibility.

By the way good source material is huge here. This in part means you need people that read a lot and have the imagination to see how a great story might be turned into a movie. Even if they are being offered original scripts vs an attempt to derive from a novel, Apple still needs somebody that can read and grasp potential!

entropys said:

Reminds of the eighties when those Japanese executives decided they wanted to get into Hollywood.

Put it me in the half who hates Apple making content. Competing with their customers.

It isn’t so much Apple making content but rather Apple not knowing how to work with content creators! Apple could easily derive movie scripts from some of the writers that have created E-Books over the years. The problem is one needs $$$$, lots of $$$$ really, to produce a movie from start to finish vs writing a book that is often done by a single person with no budget. I kinda see this as Apple financing production not creating content.

Now given all of that I'm not sure if Apple even has the right people in place to pick a project to throw money at. In the end they need to select more winners than losers. They literally have two dragons to slay, one is finding the right content and the other is finding the right team to put that to film. We have all seen rehashed content where one version of a myth comes out far better on the big screen than another.