The inexperienced executive of a traditional film studio needs to circumvent the consequences of promoting a “old Hollywood” party (read: consumption of large amounts of substances and alcoholic beverages and inflated egos that barely fit in the hotel room). The celebration occurs on the eve of the most important event for the status quo of Continental Studios, about to be sold to Amazon () if their representatives do not make a decent presentation about their new releases.
Shortly before they took the stage, the studio president and his main stars have not yet recovered from last night. Of course, things don’t work that way, and a traditional media company can become just a department of a technology giant.
This is the story behind the final episodes of the first season of “The Studio”, a series produced precisely by the only Big Tech besides Amazon to release in the great Hollywood productions: A Apple ().
Continues after advertising
The boldness of the plot is not new to Apple TV+, notable in Hollywood as a space of creative freedom and pulpudos checks in recent years. This is what he guaranteed to the company founded by Steve Jobs and Amazon as the first streaming service to win the best film Oscar for an original production with “Coda” in 2022.
But this may be becoming a problem. In Wall Street and Hollywood, investors and industry executives are still unable to understand so well what the role of Apple TV+ within the technology giant, and concerns about their overproduction spending.
In a recent interview with Variety, Netflix () Co-CEO, Ted Sarandos, said he did not understand the strategy of original Apple TV+ productions beyond “a marketing play.” “But they are very intelligent people. Maybe they see something we don’t see,” he told the magazine.
Continues after advertising
In fact, Apple seems to see its streaming as a tool to leverage the sale of other products. An idea is that original Apple TV+ productions would lead consumers to buy brand products, such as iPhones or Apple TV’s own devices, and that streaming services help keep users of their mobile phones, tablets, and brand engaged computers.
What’s more, the service line itself has become a bet to diversify the business. By 2024, Apple’s net recipes with services – which includes digital content such as music, videos and books, as well as ads, app store, cloud services and payments – grew 13% over the previous year, given iPhones stability and fall in iPads and accessories.
The great star of growth in services, however, is not Apple TV+. According to the company, the increase in net revenue is mainly due to increments in ads, app store and iCloud.
Continues after advertising
In fact, a recent report published by the The Information Quoting sources with direct knowledge of the subject points to losses in the $ 1 billion house with Apple TV+. According to the report, there is no data on the impact of the strategy on device sales.
Ted Sarandos is one of the dozens of special appearances in “The Studio”. Interpreting himself, it is the head of Netflix who gives a lesson to the protagonist Matt Remick, a movie buffer lived by Seth Rogen whose challenge is to reconcile the love of art and chair.
“They are artists, we are bureaucrats,” Sarandos tells a Remick eager for the recognition of his subordinates on the Golden Globe and believing to be equal to them. “If you’re crazy about finding it, don’t say in front of a real artist.”
Continues after advertising
The dilemma seems to find echo at the moment lived by Apple TV+. When it was founded in 2019, the company’s film and series productions hired Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, two big names from Sony, to supervise all new audiovisual productions. The bet was clear: focus on the quality of original HBO -style productions.
But except for series such as “rupture” and “Ted Lasso”, streaming has spent money rivers and failed to get close to market leaders. According to Bloomberg, Apple spent more than $ 500 million on the sum of films by directors Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott and Matthew Vaughn, as well as another $ 250 million in the “Air Masters” miniseries.
On the other hand, data published by Nielsen in June 2025 show that Netflix and Disney+ () have, respectively, 7.5% and 5% of the total use of television in the United States, the month when streamings exceeded the sum of open TV participation and cable TV. AppleTV+ has less than 1.4% – data is added to those of other smaller research players – behind its technology competitor, Prime Video, from Amazon.
Bloomberg says that by mid-204, Apple’s head of service, Eddy Cue, now has regular meetings Amburg and Erlicht to deal with budgets, encouraging them to exercise greater control over project costs. THE The Information It cites a 10 -time budget reduction for Apple TV+content, from $ 5 billion to $ 500 million.
Although Apple’s studios are nowhere near a major problem – the benefit of having the pocket of the iPhone developer, whose net profit is over $ 90 billion a year – balanced the operation has become a more immediate issue for management.
It turns out that few data on the studio can be confirmed on the balance. All company revenues on the service line is added, and the latest reports do not mention the operational performance of Apple TV+.
Moreover, investors’ eyes are, responsible for more than half of Apple’s recipes and apparent low ability to take advantage of the artificial intelligence wave compared to some of its competitors.
For now, it is possible to say something: “The Studio”, “Rupture” and “Ted Lasso” already have new confirmed seasons.
