AppleInsider Staff
Apple will not attend the SXSW 2020 festival in March due to ongoing concerns over the spread of COVID-19, leaving three Apple TV+ originals without an official premiere venue.
Apple was originally slated to debut Apple TV+ original productions "Beastie Boys Story," "Central Park" and "Home" at the SXSW 2020 Film Festival, but the company is no longer participating in the annual event, reports Variety.
Also canceled is a discussion with "Little America" creators Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon.
Despite a number of high-profile withdrawals, including Amazon Studios, Facebook, Intel, TikTok and Twitter, organizers still plan to hold the event from March 13 through 22.
"Right now there's no evidence that closing South by Southwest or other activities is going to make this community safer," Mark Escott, the interim medical director and health authority for Austin Public Health said in a press conference, according to CNN. "We're constantly monitoring that situation."
The Spike Jonze-directed "Beastie Boys Story" was announced in January and tells the story of the Grammy Award-winning group through the lens of band members Mike Diamond and Adam Horovitz.
"Central Park" is an animated series about a family of caretakers who live and work in New York's Central Park. Created by Emmy Award-winning animator Loren Bouchard ("Bob's Burgers"), the show is executive produced by Nora Smith ("Bob's Burgers") and stars Josh Gad, Leslie Odom Jr., Tituss Burgess, Kristen Bell, Stanley Tucci, Daveed Diggs and Kathryn Hahn.
The third show initially set to premiere at SXSW, "Home," is a docuseries that takes a "never-before-seen" look inside the world's most innovative homes and "unveils the boundary-pushing imagination of the visionaries who dared to dream and build them."
What Apple has in store for the three originals is unclear. Each was expected to hit Apple TV+ in the days or weeks following their premiere at SXSW 2020.
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5 Comments
I just read that Chuck Palahniuk was developing a series for Apple called Best Intentions, which he described as a darker Black Mirror. I hope that comes to fruition!
"Right now there's no evidence that closing South by Southwest or other activities is going to make this community safer," Mark Escott, the interim medical director and health authority for Austin Public Health said in a press conference, according to CNN. "We're constantly monitoring that situation."
That seems like an untenable statement at the beginning of a viral epidemic that has a twenty fold higher mortality rate than the flu. Conferences like this that have people fly in from all over the world to be confined in close quarters with sleep deprivation and too much alcohol consumption and than return to locations around the world seems like a bad idea. I wonder who this guy is?