Exclusive contract with Apple: Martin Scorsese and the Streaming Wars

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Scorsese film "The Wolf of Wall Street" with Leonardo DiCaprio (2013)

Martin Scorsese's new feature film "Killers of the Flower Moon" is expected to cost 180 to 200 million US dollars. That corresponds to the budget of a classic large-scale cinema production. The only thing is: the cinema doesn't actually exist anymore. The old cinematic art was first brought into distress by the triumphant advance of streaming providers such as Netflix and Amazon, and then by Covid-19 plunged into a crisis from which it may never recover.

"Killers of The Flower Moon", a project that the director is developing again with Leonardo DiCaprio as the main actor, at first sounds like a classic Scorsese cinema epic: It tells of the murders of Indians in Oklahoma in the 1920s and how it was established by the investigations the FBI. Excessive violence, historical settings, complex tableaux of figures - you can count on the usual staging techniques of the "GoodFellas" and "Gangs of New York" creators, which are actually tailored to the big screen.

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Director Scorsese (in January)

In fact, Scorsese, 77, had planned the film with the Paramount studio, and then Apple came on board. Paramount will in all likelihood bring the film to the cinemas (or what is left of the cinema landscape in the year of release 2021), but you have to face the truth: "Killers of The Flower Moon" is now above all an Apple- Product designed to keep customers of the Apple TV + streaming service loyal to their homes.

Cinema giants in golden TV times

At the moment, a gigantic battle is raging between the major television providers: Netflix and Amazon and, more recently, Disney + and Apple TV + are vying for subscribers, and the cinema giants are apparently also considered top performers in the golden age of television. And Scorsese had already proven beforehand that he feels very comfortable in the streaming wars that are currently raging. In 2016 he developed the music industry robber gun "Vinyl" as a series for Amazon, and for Netflix he launched his gangster epic "The Irishman" as a cinema-TV hybrid.

Hybrid epic: Scorsese's "The Irishman" (2019) with Al Pacino (center) Robert De Niro (r.)

As the industry magazine "Variety" reports, Scorsese's deal with Apple should be more extensive than before with the other two platforms. With his company Sikelia Productions, the director is said to have tied himself to the tech and TV provider for a longer period of time. He follows his friend DiCaprio, who announced last week that he had signed an exclusive contract with Apple with his own company.

In both cases, the productions resulting from the deals should first be evaluated as streaming offers before they (possibly) get a theatrical release. A not inconsiderable concession of the cine-manic Scorseses, who was allowed to celebrate his "Irishman" with Netflix 'grace in the cinema after all, before it was streamed two weeks later.

Apple in the shopping frenzy

Scorsese and DiCaprio are on a long list of other big names in cinema who have made far-reaching agreements with Apple. It ranges from the star actor Idris Elba to the arthouse genius Alfonso Cuaron (he still shot his "Roma" for Netflix) to the Hollywood tycoon Steven Spielberg - who has no problems despite his Apple commitments, a horror series for the platform newcomer Quibi to develop.

The old cinema masters can therefore be drawn to the pixelated side of power with tempting offers. Paradox: Because even if the streaming providers Scorsese and Co. are activating the new screen art, they are still keeping the greatest possible distance from the cinema in their marketing strategies. Disney has just announced, for example, that it will primarily evaluate the long-announced live version of the blockbuster "Mulan" via its in-house streaming program.

The belief in the cinema is obviously gone. This can also be seen in another measure of the entertainment giant: until recently, 20th Century Fox was one of the many brands that were united under the Disney umbrella. A name that emerged from the film studio founded 85 years ago. It has just been announced that the Disney-owned company 20th Century Fox Television will be renamed "20th Century Television". This may also have to do with the fact that the apolitical, family entertainment-oriented group does not want to be associated with the right-wing populist Fox News - Disney had previously acquired all of Rupert Murdoch's media stakes in Fox except for the news channel.

But the redemption of the traditional cinema brand Fox at Disney is also taking place at a time when the major video providers are increasingly severing their connections to the cinema. Even if the entertainment corporations continue to cut billions of dollars in the big predatory streaming competition - the forced departure from the cinema seems like a self-dwarfing.