During today’s Apple Event, we got an early look at the upcoming slate of Apple Original Films! The Apple TV movies are set to premiere globally in theaters and on Apple TV+ over the next year and beyond.
In 2022, Apple Original Films will debut new films hailing from today’s most renowned, award-winning storytellers and stars, including Alfonso Cuaron, Antoine Fuqua, Dakota Johnson, Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, Ryan Reynolds, Will Ferrell, Octavia Spencer, Bill Murray, Russell Crowe and many more.
Cha Cha Real Smooth, winner of the 2022 Sundance Film Festival U.S. Dramatic Audience Award, will premiere globally on Apple TV+ on June 17. In Cha Cha Real Smooth, writer-director Cooper Raiff also stars as a recent college graduate stuck back at home with his family and working as a party starter for bar and bat mitzvahs who strikes up a unique friendship with a young mom, played by Dakota Johnson, and her teenage daughter.
Additional eagerly-awaited Apple TV movies set to debut this summer include a documentary executive produced by Oprah Winfrey and directed by Reginald Hudlin about the career and life of the late Sidney Poitier and Luck, a new animated feature from Skydance Animation about the unluckiest girl in the world, starring Jane Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg, Eva Noblezada, Simon Pegg, Flula Borg, Lil Rel Howery, Colin O’Donoghue, John Ratzenberger and Adelynn Spoon, premiering August 5.
Later this fall, the Apple Original Films slate will expand with the premiere of the feature documentary Black & Blues: The Colorful Ballad of Louis Armstrong, a definitive look at the master musician’s life and legacy as a founding father of jazz, produced under Apple’s first-look agreement with Imagine Documentaries.
There’s also Raymond & Ray, which follows half-brothers Raymond and Ray (played by Ewan McGregor and Ethan Hawke) who have lived in the shadow of a terrible father, and Peter Farrelly’s The Greatest Beer Run Ever, a new dramedy starring Zac Efron and Russell Crowe based on the true story of John “Chickie” Donohue, who in 1968 left New York to track down and share a few beers with his childhood buddies now in the Army – fighting in Vietnam.
The documentary feature The Sound of 007 will also make its global debut this fall to mark the 60th anniversary of the James Bond film series. Audiences will also be treated to the keenly anticipated holiday release Spirited, the modern musical rendition of Charles Dickens’s classic holiday story A Christmas Carol starring Ryan Reynolds, Will Ferrell, and Octavia Spencer.
Before the end of 2022, Antoine Fuqua and Will Smith’s highly-anticipated new film Emancipation, which tells the triumphant story of a man who escapes from slavery, will debut on Apple TV+.
Also coming soon, the Apple Original Films feature film slate will see the premiere of Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Killers of the Flower Moon. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons, John Lithgow, and more, the film follows the serial murder of members of the oil-wealthy Osage Nation, a string of brutal crimes that came to be known as the Reign of Terror.
Matthew Vaughn’s next spy thriller Argylle, featuring an ensemble cast that includes Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, Dua Lipa and Ariana DeBose with John Cena and Samuel L. Jackson, will also soon be added to Apple’s growing lineup, as will Sharper, a New York City-set suspense-thriller from writers Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka starring Julianne Moore, Sebastian Stan, Justice Smith, Briana Middleton, and John Lithgow, and Tetris starring Taron Egerton, which follows the extraordinary journey of one of the most iconic computer games in the world.
As the banner continues to expand, audiences can look forward to Apple TV movies from today’s most prolific storytellers, such as Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, starring Joaquin Phoenix as the French military leader and emperor alongside Vanessa Kirby as Josephine, and a pair of complementary documentaries entitled Number One on the Call Sheet, celebrating Black leading women and men in Hollywood.
Ghosted is a high-concept romantic action adventure film starring Chris Evans and Ana de Armas; Skydance Animation’s Spellbound follows a young girl who sets out to break the spell that has divided her kingdom in two; and The Beanie Bubble is inspired by the story behind one of the biggest speculative crazes that blazed through American culture in the ‘90s and stars Elizabeth Banks, Zach Galifianakis, Sarah Snook, and Geraldine Viswanathan.
Apple Original Films is also currently in development on highly sought-after projects, including Adam McKay’s Bad Blood, about the rise and fall of Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, with Jennifer Lawrence producing and starring as Holmes; the genre-bending film Bride, produced by and starring Scarlett Johansson; and Snow Blind with Jake Gyllenhaal attached to star.
There’s also a Sue Mengers biopic starring Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence; Dolly, a new feature film written by Academy Award nominee Vanessa Taylor and Drew Pearce with Academy Award nominee Florence Pugh attached to star; an adaption of Judy Heumann’s bestselling memoir Being Heumann from Siân Heder; an Audrey Hepburn biopic; and a thriller with George Clooney and Brad Pitt, written and directed by Jon Watts, about two lone fixers who are assigned to the same job.
Underscoring its mission to deliver a curated slate of premium stories, Apple has landed overall deals for feature films from award-winning studios and production companies, including Martin Scorsese’s Sikelia Productions, Adam McKay’s Hyperobject Industries, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way, Richard Plepler’s Eden Productions, Siân Heder, Tracy Oliver, A24, Imagine Entertainment, Skydance Animation and Skydance Media.
Momentum around the Apple TV movies slate has continued to grow since the debut of Apple TV+ just over two years ago. Siân Heder’s acclaimed film CODA has already made history as the most awarded film in the history of the Sundance Film Festival, as well as becoming the first film with a predominantly Deaf cast to win a SAG award in the ensemble category.
Less than two years after its launch, Apple also nabbed the Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary for its original documentary Boys State. Apple Original Films has premiered blockbuster films, including Tom Hanks’ global hit, Academy Award-nominated film Greyhound, as well as Hanks’ follow-up project, Finch, which set audience records and debuted as the #1 movie ever on Apple TV+, following its premiere last year.
To date, Apple’s series and films have earned 213 wins and 950 nominations and have recently received recognition from the Academy Awards, SAG Awards, Critics Choice Awards, Critics Choice Documentary Awards, NAACP Image Awards, as well as past Daytime and Primetime Emmy Awards, plus more.
Mirko Parlevliet has been reporting on the entertainment industry since 1998 and founded Vital Thrills to cover the latest streaming, movie, TV, and game news.