Apple may have as many as 11 shows ready to preview at March 25 event

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in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV
Of the shows Apple is expected to preview at March 25's press event, about 11 have either finished shooting are near the end, a report revealed this weekend.


"Battlestar Galactica," one of Ronald Moore's creations.


Shows already wrapped include "Are You Sleeping," "Dickinson," "For All Mankind" by sci-fi auteur Ronald D. Moore, M. Night Shyamalan's untitled thriller, and Charlie Day and Rob McElhenney's unnamed comedy series, the New York Times said. Details of the shows can be found in AppleInsider's programming roundup.

The number of productions will likely grow in 2020, the Times added, noting that the March 25 event is intended to demonstrate "just how many shows [it] has pulled together," even though it should also be offering content from outside parties. That's important given that services like Hulu, Netflix, and HBO Now already have an arsenal of on-demand content, and by the time Apple's platform launches, it may be facing the likes of Disney+ -- difficult to top with franchises like Marvel and "Star Wars" locked and loaded.

Over a dozen sources cited by the paper voiced concerns about Apple's launch and marketing plans, saying they've received "little or no information" about when shows will debut, the narrowest window being "later this year, probably fall." Indeed the March 25 event could be as much a way of reassuring studios as building up hype with the public.

The sources also reiterated claims that Apple is wielding a heavy hand in story content, demanding that technology, at least its own, be portrayed in a positive light. Executives like CEO Tim Cook are also said be insisting on relatively sanitized material. That could potentially rub writers and directors the wrong way, since services like Netflix have relatively little censorship. "Black Mirror" for instance is an anthology series explicitly about the threats of modern technology.

AppleInsider will be live from the March 25 press event, which begins at 10 a.m. Pacific time, 1 p.m. Eastern.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    spice-boyspice-boy Posts: 1,450member
    Oh boy get ready for some milquetoast TV or Disney 2.0.
  • Reply 2 of 9
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    spice-boy said:
    Oh boy get ready for some milquetoast TV or Disney 2.0.
    That’s okay. You’ll be able to quench your carnal desires elsewhere. T and A with a flash of pubic hair is all over the Internet. Graphic violence and decapitations with blood splattering everywhere is typical TV crime drama fare these days anyway. Me? I’ll be glad to have access to some worthwhile entertainment without the obligatory R rating to get views. I’m looking forward to some of the sci-fi movies announced, like Asimov’s Foundation stories.
    edited March 2019 aaronsullivanbeowulfschmidtdirecthackermattinoz
  • Reply 3 of 9
    Ironic that “sources” are complaining about a lack of information days before a big reveal. Are they also complaining that they don’t know how GoT ends?
  • Reply 4 of 9
    lkrupp said:
    spice-boy said:
    Oh boy get ready for some milquetoast TV or Disney 2.0.
    That’s okay. You’ll be able to quench your carnal desires elsewhere.
    No need to rely upon social media habits here by driving the conversation toward polarized characterizations.

    I would prefer that a broad set of viewing tastes be accommodated by Apple introducing new best in class parental controls and user profiles that include filtering for content that may not be interesting or acceptable to some. Problem solving beats putting up limitations and barriers.
    mac_dog
  • Reply 5 of 9
    Quite a bit of information on the comedy series being developed by Charlie Day and Rob McElhenney for Apple here:



  • Reply 6 of 9
    retrogustoretrogusto Posts: 1,110member
    spice-boy said:
    Oh boy get ready for some milquetoast TV or Disney 2.0.
    Or Apple will announce that they’re buying Disney, which would explain why they slowed their buybacks in recent months despite having announced that they intend to be cash-neutral in the foreseeable future and also said that they would be sharing more details this spring about how they intend to achieve that. 
  • Reply 7 of 9
    cornchipcornchip Posts: 1,945member
    I would prefer that a broad set of viewing tastes be accommodated by Apple introducing new best in class parental controls and user profiles that include filtering for content that may not be interesting or acceptable to some. Problem solving beats putting up limitations and barriers.

    It's completely bogus that you can't set up account passwords for Netflix' "who's watching" tiles.
    gordoncomstockmattinoz
  • Reply 8 of 9
    sirlance99sirlance99 Posts: 1,293member
    spice-boy said:
    Oh boy get ready for some milquetoast TV or Disney 2.0.
    Or Apple will announce that they’re buying Disney, which would explain why they slowed their buybacks in recent months despite having announced that they intend to be cash-neutral in the foreseeable future and also said that they would be sharing more details this spring about how they intend to achieve that. 
    Apple is never going to buy Disney.
    cornchip
  • Reply 9 of 9
    I feel like video is going to be one of those types of media that Apple just doesn’t get. Like video games and social media. 

    For however much they talk about music being in the company’s DNA, they really only became a massive player in music because Steve appreciated that people would want to listen to their music the way he wanted to, and he could appreciate the How new technologies (tiny HDDs and later flash memory) could be used to create a media player without the half measures that everybody else just accepted. 

    The iTMS got off the ground because the record labels underestimated Apple. Plus I think Apple has never acknowledged to itself the way that Napster and other media sources helped them. 

    Even now the the only reason my AppleTV works the way I want it to is a combination of Netflix and Plex. Netflix for everything they make, and Plex to stream all my torrented content off an old MacBook Pro hooked up to a big external HDD that downloads all the shows I like.  Apple should have just allowed the Apple TV to hook up to an external HDD and told the TV companies that they could either license their shows at a reasonable rate or Apple would port in OTA antenna support and an iPod sized HDD inside it and let people make torrent apps for the Apple TV. 

    By not supporting AVI or MKV Apple prevented the sort of disruption that Kodi boxes caused. Apple could have ridden that wave to a ton of hardware sales and eventually a super profitable streaming service.

    I am hoping that Apple’s TV shows will be good. I feel like a lot of shows don’t need to she as bloody and booby as they are. (For example Doom Patrol, aside from occasional boobs (think it was just in the first episode and blood that didn’t add to the story, it could be the exact same show on the CW.)
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