THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 44 OCTOBER 16, 2019
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Illustration by Erik HeintzI
n August 2017, Apple made a move that
seemed to signal that the world’s largest
company was serious about Hollywood.
The tech giant outbid Netflix for a soapy
morning-show drama that would mark
Jennifer Aniston’s return to television. Based
loosely on the Brian Stelter book Top of the
Morning, the series was to be the flagship for
an ambitious new streaming service.
But by that fall, producers were starting to
panic. They had only just received the first
script from writer and first-time showrun-
ner Jay Carson. Meanwhile, the morning TVTim Cook’s Bumpy TV Launch
After a few false starts and offscreen drama, AppleTV+ finally debuts with
A-list shows, 1 billion customers and all of Hollywood watching closelylandscape was being upended by NBC’s ouster
of Matt Lauer over sexual misconduct alle-
gations, and it was becoming clear that the
#MeToo movement would need to factor into
the plot. Apple, producer Media Res, Aniston
and co-star/producer Reese Witherspoon
began to ponder making a showrunner change
as the early script, sources say, didn’t match
the standards of those involved. The group
then began to look for a more experienced
showrunner — and, in success, a writer who
could pen a woman’s experience.
In April 2018, Carson was ousted in favor
of Bates Motel showrunner Kerry Ehrin. It
had been 10 months since the Cupertino,
California-based iPhone maker had tappedSony TV veterans Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van
Amburg to lead its Hollywood invasion. Now
it was back to the drawing board for the show
the duo wanted as their calling card. Apple —
which, sources tell THR, had been in heated
arbitration alongside Media Res, Aniston and
Witherspoon against Carson over his “created
by” credit — was getting a crash course in the
messy business of entertainment.
Nearly every Silicon Valley titan that has
chased Netflix into Hollywood has faced
stumbling blocks. Amazon’s foray was char-
acterized by kooky, leather-jacket-wearing
content chief Roy Price and his distaste for
industry protocols (he resigned after a sexual
harassment allegation). Microsoft wasn’t
willing to stomach the cost of launching Xbox
Entertainment Studios and pulled out before
high-profile Halo went into production.
According to dozens of interviews across
the industry, Apple CEO Tim Cook is experi-
encing his own learning curve despite hiring
respected showbiz execs. But while there have
been some missteps (in addition to Carson,
Steven Spielberg anthology Amazing Stories
parted ways with showrunners Bryan Fuller
and Hart Hanson, and sources say the Jason
Momoa sci-fi epic See will soon make a change
at the top), the interest surrounding Apple’s
Hollywood debut remains high.
“The two-way relationship they have
with the consumer and the vast number of
consumers they have, that’s going to be game-
changing,” says CAA TV agent Rob Kenneally.
Apple executives have acknowledged enter-
tainment isn’t their expertise. “We don’t know
anything about making television,” senior vp
software and service Eddy Cue, the architect
of the company’s TV+ strategy, told audiences
at South by Southwest in 2018. “We know how
to create apps, we know how to do distribu-
tion, we know how to market. But we don’t
really know how to create shows.”
But with AppleTV+’s Nov. 1 debut loom-
ing, Cue and company will need to prove that
they’ve figured that out. Any hurdles they’ve
faced leading up to the launch won’t matter if
their plan to offer a handful of original shows
for $5 a month succeeds in attracting a frac-
tion of their 1.4 billion Apple users. And many
believe that it will. Wedbush estimates that
Apple could attract 100 million TV+ subscrib-
ers by 2023 and generate between $7 billion
and $10 billion in revenue from the product.
Though Apple makes significantly more
— $167 billion in 2018 — from the sale of the
iPhone, as people hold on to their devices
longer, services like TV+ will be key to ensur-
ing Apple ecosystem loyalty. “There’s a lot at
stake,” notes Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives.
“TV+ is going to play a major role in them
further monetizing their 900 million iPhone
users. The next leg of growth for Apple is
going to be services.” Apple declined to par-
ticipate in this story.DIGITAL | LESLEY GOLDBERG & NATALIE JARVEY
LESLEY GOLDBERG is TV editor, West Coast, and
NATALIE JARVEY is digital media editor at THR.