The streaming war reaches one of its most important chapters. The technology giant Apple, valued at a market value of more than $ 1 trillion (about R$ 4 trillion), opens its Apple TV+, a paid audiovisual content service that wants to rival the pioneer Netflix.
With a monthly fee of R$ 9.90 in Brazil, Apple TV+ reaches more than one hundred countries with leaner content than its direct competitors. Apple bets on the quality of its series. The service, unlike the others, is not supported by a pre-existing catalog or in partnership with a film or television studio.
The company, therefore, invested around $ 6 billion (R$ 24 billion) to start completely from scratch –with an injection over $ 1 billion (about R$ 4 billion) annually for the creation and maintenance of the original content.
“Two years ago, when we sold our series to the company, the Apple TV+ office was inside Beats [a Los Angeles company bought by Apple in 2014] and there were only about five or six people working inside. It was too small. Now it has become a complete broadcaster. It’s unbelievable, ” remembers director and producer Francis Lawrence, responsible for the fantasy series “See”, part of the first wave of Apple TV+ shows.
Apple TV+ opens with just nine original attractions. The flagship is “The Morning Show”, a drama series about a morning TV show shaken by reports of sexual harassment. The confidence is on the trio Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, and Steve Carell, leading actors on the show. The service still has other stars: Hailee Steinfeld (“Dickinson”), Joel Kinnaman (“For All Mankind”) and Oprah Winfrey (“Oprah’s Book Club”).
In the coming months, Apple TV+ will feature shows by M. Night Shyamalan (“Servant”), J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg (“Amazing Stories”), but without the lust of competitors. “We are only focusing on high-quality original content. Our focus is not catalog. We believe that other streamings, with so much production volume, have a more widespread focus. We can turn our releases into events,” Jamie Erlicht, head of Apple TV+ programming alongside Zack Van Amburg, tells the “Los Angeles Times”.
To reach that conclusion, the executives who, ahead of Sony TV, gave the green light to “Breaking Bad” and “The Crown”, gathered their teams at the beginning of the process to form a list of their favorite shows.
The intention was to understand not only the reason for the success of phenomena like “Game of Thrones”, but to dive into shows with low-ratings, but with a loyal audience. After the study, the two based their choices on principles of “humanity” and “simplicity”. “It is the lifeblood of many Apple products. They look simple, but they allow you to do incredibly complex things,” Van Amburg explains.
The guidelines were implemented, but not without obstacles. “The Morning Show” was created to be a light series about the lives of the people who run a morning TV show, but it was changed when news of sexual harassment came to haunt several real media empires in the USA.
The original showrunner was fired and replaced. The pilot needed to be rewritten and remade to add a more relevant angle to Carell’s character, now removed from his job on charges of misconduct with several co-workers.
“When we started the project, none of this had happened. It would be irresponsible not to address the issue,” star Witherspoon says in an interview with Yahoo Entertainment. “It opened another door and so we found these unbelievable stories that added complexity to the series,” adds Aniston, who is also an executive producer on the $ 300 million series –for two seasons.
Alena Smith, the creator of “Dickinson”, a contemporary reimagination of the life of the poet Emily Dickinson (Steinfeld), confirms that there were disagreements during the production of the series, but that she had support within Apple.
“Servant”, which has the first episode directed by Shyamalan, talks about a strange nanny who needs to take care of an even weirder baby. Rumors suggest that Apple demanded changes to a specific scene with a crucifix. The company would also have asked all authors to be careful with criticism of China, the basis of Apple’s largest factories of electronic products.
Despite this, the general content of the series owes nothing to the somber tone of modern productions from channels like HBO or Netflix. “See”, created by Steven Knight (“Peaky Blinders”), is hundreds of years in the future of Earth, when humans lost their ability to see. Jason Momoa is the leader of a tribe and needs to protect his adopted child, hunted for being able to see. Visually impaired actors are part of the cast, which gives verisimilitude to the eight episodes of the first season.
“I don’t like to compare it to “Game of Thrones”, because we’re talking about a phenomenon that has become one of the biggest series in history. But both are at the same level of quality. This is the best role of my career and I am lucky to be part of something unprecedented because we have blind warriors, lovers, and villains ”, says Momoa to “Folha de S. Paulo”.
Following the controversial and sexual tone of George R. R.Martin’s creation, “See” has a villain who prays while masturbating. “We had no problem with that. Nobody censored us,” Francis Lawrence guarantees. “These stories arise because it is the launch of the service, but all studios have problems with their productions. Our experience was fantastic.”
