One of the things Tim Cook was clearly very proud of during last night's Apple Event was the slate of films coming to Apple TV+ in 2022. And no wonder: Apple has been spending serious money on serious talent both in front of and behind the camera.
The list of names is already very impressive. There's Martin Scorcese and Leo DiCaprio, Oprah Winfrey and Ryan Reynolds, George Clooney and Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lawrence and Jake Gyllenhaal, Dua Lipa and Robert De Niro. As someone who's not particularly keen on Apple TV+'s current content, there's enough star power to make me think I might keep subscribing when my free trial ends.
The Apple Originals coming to Apple TV+ in 2022
Apple's announcement has come quite early, with some films described as "coming soon" and the earliest firm date being June 17, which is when Sundance festival award winner Cha Cha Real Smooth makes its debut with its tale of a college graduate who strikes up a friendship with young mum Dakota Johnson and her teenage daughter. Summer will also bring a gorgeous-looking documentary about the life of the late and legendary Sidney Poitier and a new animated feature called Luck, with voices including Jane Fonda, Whoopi Goldberg and Simon Pegg.
Later in the year we'll get Black and Blues, a documentary about Louis Armstrong, and there's also Ewan McGregor and Ethan Hawke in the family drama Raymond & Ray (pictured). Peter Farrelly's drama-comedy The Greatest Beer Run ever features Russell Crowe and Zac Efron, while The Sound of 007 may well leave you shaken as well as stirred.
Christmas brings Will Ferrell, Octavia Spencer and Ryan Reynolds in Spirited, a musical version of A Christmas Carol, and the Will Smith drama Emancipation looks set to be a powerful epic about a triumphant escape from slavery.
In the Coming Soon camp we have Martin Scorcese and Leo DiCaprio's Killers of the Flower Moon, starring DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Lily Gladstone in a thriller about the serial murder of the oil-rich Osage Nation, and there's also Matthew Vaughn's spy thriller Argyll. Other big names include Blade Runner director Ridley Scott (Napoleon), Chris Evans (Spellbound), Elizabeth Banks and Zach Galifianakis (The Beanie Bubble), Jake Gyllenhall (Snow Blind) and many, many more.
There's a lot of money being spent here, and I think it's being spent wisely: as we've seen with Netflix of late and the departure of Marvel movies to Disney+, content you don't own is content you can't necessarily keep forever. In tech, Apple famously wants to control the key technologies that power its products; with Apple TV+ it clearly wants to do the same with the content it streams via its subscription services.
