Apple’s Weird ‘Wolfs’ Move

Plus: ‘The Bikeriders,’ assigned!

‘Wolfs’ (MovieStillsDB)

Here’s a story I simply do not understand.

Way back in 2021, Apple Original Films won a bidding war for Wolfs, a film from writer-director Jon Watts (the director of the most-recent Spider-Man trilogy that has earned a few billion dollars at the worldwide box office) that would reteam Brad Pitt and George Clooney (whose trio of Oceans films earned more than a billion worldwide). I haven’t seen any numbers for what the package cost, but it couldn’t have been cheap: Clooney and Pitt probably combined for $30-$40 million in salary, plus some profit points; who knows what Watts got in salary and points, but he was very much in demand as No Way Home headed for an enormous box office; and the production budget was undoubtedly in the high-eight or low-nine figures. Let’s go conservative and estimate the whole deal cost Apple $150 million.

Apple released a trailer to positive buzz. The film is set to debut at the Venice Film Festival, which runs through the end of August and beginning of September, meaning a bunch of nice red-carpet footage. A theatrical rollout was planned for a few weeks later, in September.

I’m using the passive and past tenses here because, whoops, Apple’s pulled the plug on the theatrical component. Instead of a full theatrical release it’s going to get a limited run on September 20 before debuting on AppleTV+ a week later, on September 27th. Don’t worry, though: Apple still has total faith in the film. It’s a crowd pleaser that’s tested well, they tell Mike Fleming. They love it so much they’re giving it a sequel! Before a single paying audience member has seen it! Wow! That’s definitely not a sop to Watts and his team to make up for whatever this is costing him on the back end or a face-saving maneuver that will quietly be killed 18 months from now, when everyone has stopped paying attention. Don’t even think it.

Again: I just don’t understand any of this from a business perspective. Unless Apple has so little faith in the film that they are certain it won’t even make the money they’d spend on advertising back, why not put it in theaters? I understand that the box office on Killers of the Flower Moon, Napoleon, and Fly Me to the Moon were soft, but were they all that soft? If the point of the movie is to get people to sign up for AppleTV+, why not embark on a full-on advertising campaign that will educate folks not only about Wolfs but also the service writ large?

And if you’re not committed to theatrical, well, why bother picking up something like this in the first place? Is this going to drive a significant number of sign-ups for AppleTV+? $150 million worth? Maybe? People like Pitt and Clooney! People like the Spider-Man movies! Maybe a hundred thousand people will decide to either take the plunge or activate that AppleTV+ membership that came with the iPhone or the AirPods or the iPad they bought a few months back. And then maybe some percentage of those people will forget to cancel after the trial ends. And maybe it all works out.

But the data is in! Movies tend to perform better on streaming if they’ve gotten a proper theatrical release. It gives them a whiff of legitimacy and there’s a publicity hangover from the ad campaign. I find it hard to believe studios can’t figure out how to sell “The Oceans Guys Made a Movie with the Spider-Man Director,” but what do I know?

If I had to guess, someone at Apple simply got tired of getting hammered in the press for “flops” like some of the movies mentioned above. Harder for a movie to demonstratively “flop” if you never release any data about it (and Apple has been pretty stingy with data, though what we’ve seen from Nielsen doesn’t suggest they’re keeping a lot of good news from us). If I had to further guess, Apple’s experiment with theatrical presentations is coming to a close. Which is a shame. But, perhaps, inevitable.

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Across the Movie Aisle was off this week—even movie podcasters take vacation sometimes—but we’ll be back on Tuesday with an episode on … AppleTV+’s The Instigators, starring Matt Damon and Casey Affleck (another Oceans reteaming, oddly).

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Links!

This week I reviewed the new M. Night Shyamalan movie, Trap. I will always have a soft spot for Shyamalan, even when his movies don’t entirely work, at least in part because he’s so good with actors. And Josh Hartnett really is a marvel in this film.

This interview with Vince Vaughn is genuinely fascinating, just a perfect example of a great conversation that also happens to shed light on both the subject (Vaughn), the subject’s industry (Hollywood), and the interviewer of the subject himself (David Marchese).

On this Saturday’s Bulwark Goes to Hollywood, I talked to Bulwark member Brad Thor about his new book, Shadow of Doubt, as well as the book industry writ large, politics, how international relations impact his novels, and what a TV show based on his Scot Harvath series might look like.

Anime streaming service Crunchyroll announced that it has 15 million paying subscribers, which is an enormous number for a relatively niche service. I’ve written about this before, but I find Crunchyroll’s success to be really heartening: They have a small-but-robust theatrical component, an increasingly successful streaming service, and a legit merchandising brand. It’s a great company and I can’t help but feel that there’s space for growth with parent company Sony’s acquisition of the Alamo Drafthouse chain of theaters.

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Assigned Viewing: The Bikeriders (Peacock & 4K UHD)

‘The Bikeriders’ (MovieStillsDB)

I reviewed The Bikeriders already. Too long, didn’t read: I liked it quite a bit on initial viewing and it has grown in my mind since then, earning a place on my shortlist for year-end best-of status. I’m assigning it because it’s hitting Peacock today, August 9, and DVD/Blu-ray/4K UHD on Tuesday, August 13. I was lucky enough to get my hands on an early 4K copy, and I strongly recommend picking it up if you’re a physical media sort of person because it’s a proper physical media release. What I mean is that it looks pristine—seriously, there’s nothing like watching a good 4K transfer after spending a few weeks watching nothing but streaming—and it has a handful of short extras (three mini-docs about the actors, the look of the film, and Jeff Nichols’s vision for the film).

Most importantly and most entertainingly, it has a full-on director’s commentary, which has become something of a lost art form in recent years. Once upon a time, it felt like every DVD was stuffed to the gills with bonus features and director’s commentaries; geniuses like Paul Thomas Anderson reminisce about listening to them as a sort of film school substitute. As physical media has become less prevalent and audiences have grown fine with streaming, such extras aren’t as common. I’m excited to really dive into Nichols’s commentary over the weekend; you get the sense in these things (as with previous tracks on Mud and Shotgun Stories) that he’s almost paying it forward, helping the next generation of directors realize their passion projects.

Anyway, if you haven’t seen the film, watch it on Peacock tonight. But if you have seen the film and you loved it—or if you just trust me!—pick up a physical copy and dive into the extras. I think you’ll like what you find.