The day has nearly arrived for Apple to show the world whether there’s any fire behind the smoke of its streaming service.
Apple has kept a tight lid on most of the details of its upcoming service, even keeping its creative partners in the dark about how exactly their work will be distributed. What is undisputed, however, is that the tech giant with a nearly $1 trillion market cap has lined up a who’s who of high-profile talent to vault it into the increasingly crowded original-content arena.
Apple is set to unveil its plans for a launching of a revved up Apple TV offering aggregating channels and apps, its plan for original content and a subscription news service on Monday at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, Calif.
The company’s active roster is focused on well-known IP and packages with big names in front of and behind the camera. The company has been widely reported to have budgeted $1 billion to launch its most ambitious TV effort to date.
Among the high-profile shows ordered to series at Apple are:
- a Reese Witherspoon-Jennifer Aniston morning show drama;
- an Emily Dickinson half-hour series starring Hailee Steinfeld;
- dramas “Little Voices” and “My Glory Was I Had Such Friends” from executive producer J.J. Abrams, with the latter to star Jennifer Garner;
- drama “Are You Sleeping” starring Octavia Spencer;
- an adaptation of the book “Defending Jacob” starring and executive produced by Chris Evans; a based-on-a-true story CIA drama starring “Captain Marvel’s” Brie Larson;
- and a video-game development studio comedy from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day.
And that’s just for starters. Nearly two years after Apple recruited former Sony TV presidents Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, not a single frame of footage from any of Apple’s shows has been publicly released. One aspect of Apple’s subscription television product that has been confirmed is that the company will not only distribute its own shows but also seeks to be a gateway to selling third-party video subscription services like Starz and Showtime, for a healthy fee. It remains to be seen if AT&T’s HBO will be an Apple partner. Netflix disclosed last week that it will not be on the platform.
