As one of the biggest and most popular tech manufacturers on the planet, Apple has always been in a unique position for not only being able to afford to make its own original programming, but also having the devices and the interfaces to deliver it to consumers. And yet it has seemingly been doing nothing about it…until now. Early reports have surfaced stating the mega-corporation may be looking to get into creating its own content, possibly putting it in direct competition with Netflix in battling for streaming viewers.
We shouldn’t soon expect to hear about Apple signing exclusive four-movie deals with any major actors or anything, but it is beginning to lay down the groundwork for a future where it has an entirely different arm of operations devoted to generating new content. While Apple execs aren’t coughing up information just yet, Variety reports that there are conversations being had between the tech giant and Hollywood executives to gauge interest in who might want to get things jumpstarted with the company. It is also reportedly looking to begin hiring higher-ups for development and production divisions so that it could possibly begin the creation process by some time next year.
At this point, it’s not clear yet whether Apple would put more of its interest on making TV shows or features, or even a combination of the two. There are reasons to believe it could go both ways, though. For one, Apple supposedly entered the bidding war for Jeremy Clarkson and his fellow ex-Top Gear hosts, although that project ended up going to Amazon for an exorbitant sum. As well, the company has caused waves over getting into the cord-cutting market by offering up its own alternative to Sling TV and other systems, but nothing has really become of that yet due to licensing troubles. If they were providing the TV shows for people to watch, it might make up for Apple not having access to a plethora of traditional TV series.
As far as heading into film creation, Apple has already been in the distribution game for a while, acquiring features for iTunes exclusivity. Considering how many billions the company has already, dropping $100 million to make a large handful of independent award-buzzy films would be a potentially lucrative drop in the bucket. Plus, movie producers have been wary of working with Netflix due to the streaming service not being able to offer much on the way of back-end grosses, since it’s all subscription-based. Apple, meanwhile, could easily generate profits through iTunes and allow for better deals to be made with Hollywood production companies. Plus, Apple is a lot better about advertising its wares than Netflix.
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