Apple’s movie theater beef with Hollywood is getting worse

Wolfs director Jon Watts told Collider on Friday that he didn’t think a sequel to the George Clooney and Brad Pitt movie, which Apple had already greenlit, would be happening. Yesterday, he revealed to Deadline that he had backed out of the project because he “no longer trusted [Apple] as a creative partner” after the company made a u-turn on its wide theatrical release.

The New York Times reported in August that Apple pulled the theatrical run for Wolfs because it was concerned it was spending too much on films after suffering multiple high-profile box office disappointments. At the same time, its limited-run approach worked out for Doug Liman’s The Instigators, which analysts cited by the Times said was the most-watched streaming movie in its first week and drove around 50,000 signups to Apple TV Plus.

Similarly, Wolfs became “by far the most viewed feature film ever released” on Apple TV Plus, as Deadline writes. But Watts was unhappy with the experience, telling the outlet he “was completely shocked” by Apple’s “last minute shift from a wide theatrical release,” and asked the company not to announce he was writing a sequel.

They ignored my request and announced it in their press release anyway, seemingly to create a positive spin to their streaming pivot. And so I quietly returned the money they gave me for the sequel. I didn’t want to talk about it because I was proud of the film and didn’t want to generate any unnecessary negative press. I loved working with Brad and George (and Amy and Austin and Poorna and Zlatko) and would happily do it again. But the truth is that Apple didn’t cancel the Wolfs sequel, I did, because I no longer trusted them as a creative partner.”

Liman described a similar experience making Road House for Amazon in a July interview with IndieWire. (He praised Apple, however, saying it was “above board” about The Instigators being made for streaming.) And director Steve McQueen recently told the outlet in his own interview that he “cannot say I’m not sad” about Apple only giving his WWII film Blitz a limited release.

By all accounts and in spite of some directors’ unhappiness, Apple seems set on being cautious with its theatrical risks from now on. As Bloomberg reported in September, the company’s shifting plans mean spending less money per movie, with “one or two big theatrical swings a year” with movies like the upcoming F1.