Nicole Sperling for the New York Times: Apple Rethinks Its Movie Strategy After a String of Misses

Apple executives in Cupertino were already questioning the entertainment units over the amount of money being spent on movies, and the people said there was a thought within the company to not risk a public disappointment should the movie not succeed at the box office.

I totally get why Apple would look at their theatrical releases, all of which seem to have been disappointments, and not what to have another film be relegated in the zeitgeist as a disappointment. Maybe Apple has other reasons to cancelling Wolfs’ theatrical run, and people will certainly argue that making money in the theatrical run isn’t important to Apple, but whatever the case may be it’s clear Apple is still chasing that first real hit at the box office.

What this does for me is really make me appreciate the openness of the theatrical movie business. Apple will surely say something like, “we’re very happy with Wolfs on Apple TV+” no matter how many people watch it and we just kinda need to take their word for it. Meanwhile, I can tell you that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice made $136 million domestically last week, which absolutely smoked everything else that was in theaters that week (it’s also more than Napoleon and Killers of the Flower Moon earned in their entire theatrical runs combined). It’s not just Apple, it’s all the streamers. Netflix at least releases some data these days, but there’s something I really appreciate about box office data simple being out there for anyone to see.