Apple TV+ scrapped show based on Gawker after Tim Cook heard about it

Credit: Apple

Apple reportedly killed an Apple TV+ series chronicling the rise of Gawker Media after CEO Tim Cook personally intervened, according to a new report.

Earlier in 2020, the Apple streaming platform was said to be working with former Gawker staff on a dramedy series about the subversive blog network. Since then, no word has surfaced on the project.

On Sunday, however, The New York Times reported that Apple TV+ scrapped the show after Cook discovered its development and sent an email in response. Sources told the publication that Cook was "surprised" to learn Apple was making a show about Gawker, and reportedly "expressed a distinctly negative view" toward the now-shuttered media company.

Gawker Media had caused problems for Apple several times during its run, including when its tech site, Gizmodo, obtained an iPhone 4 prototype. That situation led to then-CEO Steve Jobs pleading to get it back, and a police raid on a Gawker editor's house.

The media organization also ran stories that publicly outed Cook as gay, six years before the Apple chief executive came out in a public essay on equality published in 2014.

Now the show, which was dubbed "Scraper" and pitched to Apple TV+ by Gawker veterans Cord Jefferson and Max Read, is back on the market and another streaming platforms may pick it up. The New York Times reports that the Apple executive who brought the show in, Layne Eskridge, has left the company.

Among streaming platforms and studios, Apple TV+ has been among the most clear about its "corporate red lines."

Apple's Services chief Eddy Cue has reportedly told partners that "the two things we will never do are hard-core nudity and China." Cue also told Apple TV+ creators to "avoid portraying China in a poor light," according to BuzzFeed News

Back in 2018, The Wall Street Journal reported that Cook had also scrapped a Dr. Dre biopic because it had too much violence and nudity. Apple has also instructed M. Night Shyamalan to keep crucifixes off the walls of "Servant."

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35 Comments

SpamSandwich

said about 3 years ago

Since the quotes about China come from BuzzFeed, I give no credibility to them.

lkrupp

said about 3 years ago

"Apple's Services chief Eddy Cue has reportedly told partners that "the two things we will never do are hard-core nudity and China." Cue also told Apple TV+ creators to "avoid portraying China in a poor light," according to BuzzFeed News”

This pro-China mentality is spreading in Hollywood because China is funding a lot of movies these days. Hollywood today would’t dare make a movie like Seven Days in Tibet, Red Corner, and others that were critical of the Chinese government and its legal system. The actor Richard Gere was banned from the Oscars for his support of Tibet and the Dali Lama, and that was in 1993. Since then Hollywood movie studios have become more and more dependent on Chinese investments and avoid criticism of the regime at all costs. Let me know when Hollywood makes a movie about the plight of the Uighurs. Yet just about every movie coming out of Hollywood portrays the Unites States as an evil empire that needs to be destroyed and rebuilt.

22july2013

said about 3 years ago

Besides offending China, but for similar reasons (i.e., money) many Hollywood movies are given different variants for different countries so as to not offend viewers (or sometimes for other reasons.) For one example, the movie Pearl Harbor (2001) has a Japanese version that has several alterations. One of the alterations is to use the date "December 8th" instead of "December 7th" for copies in Japan because the actual date of the attack in Japan as December 8th due to the International Date line. That edit actually makes sense (although consumers in Japan should be smart enough to know about the International Date line) but they also made several other edits that seemed to be to avoid offending Japanese viewers (when you are selling movies, you can't allow historical facts to affect your sales.)

These variations were usually enforced using DVD Region Codes, when movies were sold on DVDs, so that you physically couldn't play a DVD movie in the wrong region. Now we're more into streaming movies. I'm not sure if movies that are streamed to different countries are maintaining those "regional variations." I would like to ask Apple if their streamed movies (including Apple TV+) implement these intended regional differences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code <--

The question we should ask is whether it makes sense for a movie company to be making "regional variations" in its movies to account for local sensitivities, now that streaming makes the concept harder to implement (because, e.g., VPNs.)

Murvel

said about 3 years ago

Who’s surprised? I’m not. And I bet those two taboo things are going to be over two dozen in a couple of years.

anantksundaram

said about 3 years ago

It's not a good look for Apple TV+, already accused -- arguably with some justification -- of anodyne content. Nor is Eddie Cue's quote about "nudity and China".

(Other, somewhat more credible news outlets are reporting the same thing.)

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