Apple TV+ scrapped show based on Gawker after Tim Cook heard about it
Apple reportedly killed an Apple TV+ series chronicling the rise of Gawker Media after CEO Tim Cook personally intervened, according to a new report.
Credit: Apple
Earlier in 2020, the Apple streaming platform was said to be working with former Gawker staff on a dramedy series about the subversive blog network. Since then, no word has surfaced on the project.
On Sunday, however, The New York Times reported that Apple TV+ scrapped the show after Cook discovered its development and sent an email in response. Sources told the publication that Cook was "surprised" to learn Apple was making a show about Gawker, and reportedly "expressed a distinctly negative view" toward the now-shuttered media company.
Gawker Media had caused problems for Apple several times during its run, including when its tech site, Gizmodo, obtained an iPhone 4 prototype. That situation led to then-CEO Steve Jobs pleading to get it back, and a police raid on a Gawker editor's house.
The media organization also ran stories that publicly outed Cook as gay, six years before the Apple chief executive came out in a public essay on equality published in 2014.
Now the show, which was dubbed "Scraper" and pitched to Apple TV+ by Gawker veterans Cord Jefferson and Max Read, is back on the market and another streaming platforms may pick it up. The New York Times reports that the Apple executive who brought the show in, Layne Eskridge, has left the company.
Among streaming platforms and studios, Apple TV+ has been among the most clear about its "corporate red lines."
Apple's Services chief Eddy Cue has reportedly told partners that "the two things we will never do are hard-core nudity and China." Cue also told Apple TV+ creators to "avoid portraying China in a poor light," according to BuzzFeed News
Back in 2018, The Wall Street Journal reported that Cook had also scrapped a Dr. Dre biopic because it had too much violence and nudity. Apple has also instructed M. Night Shyamalan to keep crucifixes off the walls of "Servant."
Credit: Apple
Earlier in 2020, the Apple streaming platform was said to be working with former Gawker staff on a dramedy series about the subversive blog network. Since then, no word has surfaced on the project.
On Sunday, however, The New York Times reported that Apple TV+ scrapped the show after Cook discovered its development and sent an email in response. Sources told the publication that Cook was "surprised" to learn Apple was making a show about Gawker, and reportedly "expressed a distinctly negative view" toward the now-shuttered media company.
Gawker Media had caused problems for Apple several times during its run, including when its tech site, Gizmodo, obtained an iPhone 4 prototype. That situation led to then-CEO Steve Jobs pleading to get it back, and a police raid on a Gawker editor's house.
The media organization also ran stories that publicly outed Cook as gay, six years before the Apple chief executive came out in a public essay on equality published in 2014.
Now the show, which was dubbed "Scraper" and pitched to Apple TV+ by Gawker veterans Cord Jefferson and Max Read, is back on the market and another streaming platforms may pick it up. The New York Times reports that the Apple executive who brought the show in, Layne Eskridge, has left the company.
Among streaming platforms and studios, Apple TV+ has been among the most clear about its "corporate red lines."
Apple's Services chief Eddy Cue has reportedly told partners that "the two things we will never do are hard-core nudity and China." Cue also told Apple TV+ creators to "avoid portraying China in a poor light," according to BuzzFeed News
Back in 2018, The Wall Street Journal reported that Cook had also scrapped a Dr. Dre biopic because it had too much violence and nudity. Apple has also instructed M. Night Shyamalan to keep crucifixes off the walls of "Servant."
Comments
This pro-China mentality is spreading in Hollywood because China is funding a lot of movies these days. Hollywood today would’t dare make a movie like Seven Days in Tibet, Red Corner, and others that were critical of the Chinese government and its legal system. The actor Richard Gere was banned from the Oscars for his support of Tibet and the Dali Lama, and that was in 1993. Since then Hollywood movie studios have become more and more dependent on Chinese investments and avoid criticism of the regime at all costs. Let me know when Hollywood makes a movie about the plight of the Uighurs. Yet just about every movie coming out of Hollywood portrays the Unites States as an evil empire that needs to be destroyed and rebuilt.
These variations were usually enforced using DVD Region Codes, when movies were sold on DVDs, so that you physically couldn't play a DVD movie in the wrong region. Now we're more into streaming movies. I'm not sure if movies that are streamed to different countries are maintaining those "regional variations." I would like to ask Apple if their streamed movies (including Apple TV+) implement these intended regional differences.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code <--
The question we should ask is whether it makes sense for a movie company to be making "regional variations" in its movies to account for local sensitivities, now that streaming makes the concept harder to implement (because, e.g., VPNs.)
portrayed, cross your line.
Slightly more on point instead of rank curiosity, I give major props to MBKHD for asking Craig Federighi why there's no native Weather or Calculator app on the iPad. Craig didn't see that one coming and pretty much danced around the question. Somebody should be asking questions like that.
First, I'd say region codes were really enacted to enforce licensing agreements, not because versions might contain or have omitted content an intended market might find offensive or objectionable.
Second, If a studio (or whomever) wants to sell to a specific market or region, they have to offer something that will sell. If that means tailoring a product for that market, then that's what they do. It really is the studio's call, or whoever is footing the bill and making (or losing) the big bucks, and big decisions. We just vote with our wallets and/or rage in forums.
Doesn't sound remotely credible, rather like the story that Cue and Cook were involved in censoring scripts.
And they went on to make See.
Er … okay.
If Apple were a public service broadcaster it would be different but that's not the case.
If the Gawker show had appeal I personally would let it run. Apple likes to use the word 'courage' and perhaps it would have represented a good example of that. The same goes for China but if it's a question of economic interest, I can understand the reasons for the 'don't rock the boat' stance even though I don't share them.
You can be hard on certain subjects as long as you are fair in how you treat them.
And Apple News? I guess they won’t be able to talk about human rights violations or the Dalai Lama either. Songs critical of China, are they going to be purged from Apple Music?
I was contemplating getting an Apple One subscription, but I might watch propaganda for personal edification, but I’m certainly NEVER going to pay for it.
Obviously Apple’s “values” are thoroughly green, as in money, and all the rest of it is only show to create an image to attract financially more potent spenders.
Disgusting! 🤮
And, no, I don’t hate China as a country, culture, nor have I something about it’s people.
But it’s regime is more murderous than that of the Nazis, and making that a no-go-topic is on the same level as being a Holocaust denier, and functioning as an extension of China’s censorship authorities in “the land of the free”. Absolutely horrific!
when the integrity of the content reaching the American public is at stake due to hardware manufacturing and sales considerations, then its time to split the services branch from the hardware and software branch.
Do you criticize Disney also for their lack of hard-hitting political documentaries?
And Trump told us what that vaccine would be: Light -- shine light on it. (The light of truth)
Yeh, but the haters want to hate -- and they get their panties all in a bunch when you stop their tantrums.