Another day, another big name locked down for Apple TV+. Filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón, who directed hits like Gravity, Children of Men, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, has agreed to develop new television shows exclusively for Apple’s upcoming streaming service, which launches this November.
Under the terms of the deal, Cuarón will develop series for Apple through his production company Esperanto Filmoj. Cuarón’s producing partner Gabriela Rodriguez is expected to oversee day-to-day operations, and Apple will retain exclusive rights to all television shows that Cuarón develops while under contract. Some of these programs will be made in conjunction with Anonymous Content, with which Cuarón has a non-exclusive deal, although he’s looking to work with other collaborators as well.
The terms of Cuarón and Apple’s agreement weren’t made public, although Deadline claims that Cuarón’s contract lasts for five years and is “state-of-the-art.”
While Cuarón is normally associated with feature films, not TV, the filmmaker actually has a solid TV background. The director got his start on the Mexican horror and sci-fi anthology series La Hora Marcada and co-created Believe, a short-lived science fiction series on NBC. In 2017, Casey Affleck and Cuarón announced that they were pitching a horror series called Ascension to pay cable and streaming networks, although no further details about that show have been released.
This isn’t Cuarón’s first brush with streaming services, either. Earlier this year, Cuarón’s Roma, a Netflix exclusive, scored 10 Oscar nominations and won Cuarón his second Best Director trophy.
Cuarón joins a growing list of top-tier creators who have pledged support for Apple TV+. Previously, Apple announced partnerships with Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Battlestar Galactica mastermind Ronald D. Moore, M. Night Shyamalan, Reese Witherspoon, and more.
Apple is paying a lot for those big names, too. The Morning Show, which stars Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, and Steve Carell, costs over $15 million an episode, making it more expensive than Game of Thrones on a per-episode basis. A musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol reportedly cost Apple more than $60 million for stars Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds’ services alone.
It remains to be seen whether Apple’s investment will pay off. While Apple TV+ has lots of celebrities, its library looks thin compared to those found on Netflix, the upcoming Disney+, and Hulu, all of which feature thousands of hours of legacy content. In addition, some observers worry that bidding wars like the one that scored Apple A Christmas Carol will lead to higher subscription prices across all streaming services, ultimately hurting consumers.
Apple TV+ launches on November 1, 2019, and will cost $5 a month. Rumors suggest that a bundle combining Apple TV+ and Apple Music for a discounted rate might also be on its way.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.