Apple TV Plus will have plenty of films – but not before they’ve hit cinemas first.
As things stand, there’s a bunch of cinema chains in the UK and the US who are refusing to screen Martin Scorsese’s incoming movie The Irishman, because Netflix – the firm paying the bill for it – is paying short shrift to the theatrical release window.
Now we’ll see how Apple’s decision to observe a brief release window goes down.
The firm’s new streaming platform, Apple TV Plus, will see a bunch of films that the company has funded exclusively being hosted on it. Well, sort-of exclusively, because it’s confirmed that each of its films will get a brief cinema release first.
First up will be The Banker, starring Samuel L Jackson and Anthony Mackie. That’s due in US cinemas at the start of December, and will likely be on Apple TV Plus the same month. Several other titles will follow a similar pattern, with Apple leaning on smaller US distributors for their help in getting films out onto big screens.
Apple TV Plus kicks off at the start of November, and films will be a sizeable part of its offering. Whether a theatrical release of just a few weeks will be enough to get exhibitors supporting what it’s doing though seems unlikely. But we’ll wait and see just how it all plays out…
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