Apple Test-Drives Big-Screen Movie Strategy With F1

The tech company’s theatrical programming business is in need of a win.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Apple test drives big screen movie strategy with F one
by Thomas Buckley read by George Washington II, forty eight
hours before Formula One's Grand Prix took to the streets
of Monaco. In late May, AppleLink screened its upcoming F

(00:21):
one film for the real life drivers and team managers
competing at the pinnacle of motorsport. It was crucial to
Apple's services boss Eddie Q that the company get it right.
Not only is Q himself a lifelong racing fan who
sits on the board of Ferrari NV, but the movie

(00:42):
is among Apple's most expensive pictures to date, with a
budget of more than two hundred million dollars, raising the
stakes even higher. It marks the tech giant's return to
theaters since dialing back its earlier big screen ambitions. To
capture the feel of sitting in a cockpit hurtling forward

(01:03):
at two hundred thirty three miles per hour three hundred
seventy five kilometers per hour, Apple mounted dozens of iPhone
cameras on cars zooming through actual F one events. In fact,
the setup produced scenes so dramatic that the company has
entered talks with Formula one to permanently affix its miniature

(01:25):
lenses onto each car's fuselage, which would change how the
sport is televised to roughly seventy million global viewers per race.
The film is not over the top, Hollywood, Q says
the morning of the race's kickoff, his voice occasionally drowned
out by the roar of Aston Martin's safety cars lapping

(01:47):
the track along the French Riviera city state its true
authentic racing. F one, directed by Joseph Kazinski, whose high
octane top gun Maverick grossed war one point five billion
dollars for paramount pictures at the global box office in
twenty twenty two, and starring Brad Pitt as a driver

(02:09):
who re enters the highest class of racing after several
years out of the league, will be released on thousands
of screens on June twenty seventh. Although Apple pushes back
against the idea that its whole Hollywood strategy hinges on
the performance of this movie, or on any single title
for that matter, industry watchers agree the company needs a

(02:32):
theatrical win. Last year, it began uploading more of its
titles straight to Apple TV Plus after a mixed performance
at the box office, across its first four films for Cinemas,
which included Argyle and fly Me to the Moon. With
its A list star and summer tent pole budget f

(02:54):
one gives Apple's theatrical programming business a chance to reset.
Len't just sit here and go like, well, that doesn't matter,
it's irrelevant, Q says of the box office rankings. No,
you want a lot of people to go see the film.
Apple which introduced its streaming service in twenty nineteen and

(03:17):
has been rolling out original films ever since, including twenty
twenty two Oscar Best Picture CODA, has been gaining momentum lately,
particularly on the TV show front. The number of subscribers
has soared in recent months on the back of popular
series including Severance and Seth Rogan's The Studio. Q, who

(03:39):
oversees Apple's ninety six billion dollar services division that includes music, video, news,
and podcasts, says those new hits are bringing users to
the service for the first time, where they're discovering older
hit shows like ted Lasso and The Morning Show. Going forward,

(04:00):
Apple's expansion strategy will involve investing more in prestige, local
language films and TV shows, as it did with the
French fashion house drama La Maison, and the American French
Japanese co production Drops of God, which won the International
Emmy Award for Best Drama in twenty twenty four. We

(04:22):
absolutely have a huge opportunity to grow, Q says. Rivals
such as Netflix, Inc. Have also been trying to upend
how movies are consumed, with Ted Sarandos, Its chief executive officer,
in April calling theatrical releases an outmoded idea for most people.

(04:43):
Q is adamant that's not the case. This concept that
theaters are going away, It's not true, he says. Theatrical
experiences are great and I'm a huge fan. Still, Apple
appears to be choosing its spot. Last fall, it canceled
plans to release Wolf's, an action comedy starring George Clooney

(05:06):
and Pitt, in thousands of theaters globally, instead marketing it
primarily as a streaming title, curbing any risk of the
film disappointing at the box office. Investors aren't so concerned
whether or not Apple's programming takes off. Wall Street tends
to be much more focused on iPhone sales at the

(05:28):
three trillion dollar company, but the company would still prefer
that its Hollywood push makes some money. Although Apple doesn't
break out the finances of its movie and TV operations,
the video programming division that includes Apple Original Films and
Apple TV Plus has yet to turn a profit since

(05:50):
studio chiefs Zach Van Amberg and Jamie Erlicht were hired
to run it in twenty seventeen, According to people familiar
with the matter, who asks not to be named as
the information is private, when we started this, maybe we
were naive in the sense of how hard it is,
q says, citing back to back disruptions from COVID nineteen

(06:13):
and then the overlapping writers and Actors strikes in twenty
twenty three. He says he used to joke to colleagues
that the locusts would come for La next. We got
into this business because we thought it would be a
good business, and in order to continue to do great things,
you need businesses to be profitable. Apple hopes its new

(06:36):
film can help it do just that. After all, f One,
forecast to gross more than forty million dollars at the
US and Canada box offices on its opening weekend, feels
pretty darn authentic. The title, which will be distributed by
Warner Brothers Discovery Inks. Film Unit was co produced by

(06:57):
Lewis Hamilton, a seven time Formula One champion with Mercedes
who now races for Ferrari. Hamilton counseled the company and
director Kazinski on how to improve the movie's realism, fixing
details such as the sound race cars make when they
take corners at high speed. Racing is very very hard

(07:19):
to navigate and to shoot really well, Hamilton says, I
don't really feel there's many good racing films out there.
By placing the cameras right on the cars, he says,
Apple was able to capture something that has eluded other filmmakers.
Back in Monaco after the private premiere, Q was relieved

(07:40):
when the F one credits rolled. He says the response
from the audience was rapturous. Several Formula One drivers and managers,
many of whom make cameos in sequences shot at Grand
Prix weekends throughout the twenty twenty four season, approached Q afterward,
praising the films off enticity. Critics already seem to like

(08:03):
it a lot. Now that excitement just needs to translate
to the movie going public. We want a lot of
people to go see this film, Q says, and if
a lot of people don't go to see this, then
we missed something