Apple hasn’t officially greenlit a sequel to last year’s blockbuster “F1: The Movie,” but Eddie Cue, who oversees the tech giant’s entertainment business, has said that “hopefully” a sequel will come, once again partnering with Jerry Bruckheimer.
Mr. Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services and health, joined Mr. Bruckheimer, a longtime Hollywood producer who worked with Apple on last year’s Apple Original Films hit “F1: The Movie,” on the main stage at the Cannes Palais Convention Center on Monday during the Cannes Lions Festival. Mr. Cue’s appearance has been queued to be named Entertainment of the Year at Cannes Lions, where the festival cited his leadership of the tech giant’s entertainment and services business, which includes Apple Music and Apple TV streaming services.
“I can’t say this is a dream come true, because I couldn’t even have a dream like that,” Cue told Bruckheimer of the award. “I have a great team that I work with every day that has made all of this possible. The great thing is, we’re just getting started, so there’s still a lot of work to do.”
Bruckheimer began the conversation by praising Cue and the Apple team. “We’re really excited because we want to come back and hopefully make ‘F1’ again,” he said. Bruckheimer is also working with producer Joseph Kosinski on another film project about UFOs with Apple, which he described as “kind of like ‘All the President’s Men,’ about what the government has been hiding from UAPs (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) for years.” “This is going to be a true story, and I mean, it’s going to be a mind-boggling story,” Bruckheimer said.
Regarding working with Apple, Bruckheimer said, “The team that Eddie has put together and all the inventions that they’ve developed so far makes it very easy to work in a place like that.”
“F1: The Movie,” in which Brad Pitt returns from retirement to play a race car driver on a Formula One circuit, grossed $634 million worldwide, making it Pitt’s biggest film in history, Cue said. “One of the things I loved about it was that I felt better when I left,” he said, adding, “I loved coming out[of the theater]and watching the movie by myself.”
According to Cue, the way Apple operates today is still based on Steve Jobs’ “fundamental beliefs.” “I definitely think he’s very proud of the work we’ve done in this area,” Cue said.
Mr. Cue recalled that early in his career, before Apple considered forming its own entertainment studio, he asked Steve Jobs, who was CEO of Apple and Pixar at the same time, “Why can Pixar always produce hit after hit and the same thing doesn’t happen everywhere else?” Cue said Jobs’ comment was that “the story is always important.” “It starts with a story and ends with a story. You can’t have a great show without a story. And that always resonated about what we were trying to do.”
Cue recalled when Apple was preparing to launch Apple TV+ in 2019, saying, “At the time, there were certainly a lot of other companies doing it. I didn’t know much about the business, but I had a belief that everyone was looking for quantity, not quality. We’ve always strived to be the best, not the best. So we wanted to build television and film as a place where the best storytellers, the best creators, and the best people would come together.”The best writers and the best directors would want to work there and do their best work. ”
Cue said Apple decided from the beginning not to license content for streaming services.
“We did what I think most people said, ‘You can’t do that,’ and they were probably right, which is you can’t start a movie or TV (streaming service) without licensing the content and getting the old content that’s out there,” he told Bruckheimer. “But we always felt that if we were going to put our name on it, it would be weird to put our name on something that we didn’t help create. So we said, let’s start from scratch. We’re going to start with every show that we create. So when we launched, we had, you know, five or six shows.”
Cue said it took two years to find the right executive to lead Apple’s original entertainment division, ultimately hiring former Sony Pictures Television executives Jamie Erlicht and Zach Van Amburg in 2017. “The most important thing was the people we hired and the people we worked with,” he said.
Cue gave a shoutout to Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston as they were “the first people to believe in us” as they were promoting “The Morning Show” around town.
“I thought the show was great,” Cue said. “But we had to go and convince them, and obviously other people wanted the show too…and I realized I wasn’t going to get it, because someone always gives more or whatever. But I asked for a meeting with both of them because I thought we were special.” Cue told Witherspoon and Aniston in “TV History. I asked them if they thought it would be one of the best shows ever, and I said, ‘Yeah, I think it’s going to be one of the best. That means you have to do it with us because we don’t have any other shows! So we believe in what you’re doing 100% and we’re going to launch on that basis.’
Mr. Cue proudly stated that Apple TV was an EGOT winner following the Broadway musical adaptation of the original series “Schmigadoon!” It won a Tony Award. Apple won a Best Picture Oscar for its uplifting 2021 drama “CODA” and a Grammy for “Bad as I Used to Be,” directed by Chris Stapleton from “F1: The Movie.” The company has won multiple Emmy Awards, and last year Apple TV’s Hollywood satire “The Studio” won 13 trophies, a record for a comedy series in a single year and for a first-year series.
“So, we’ve had a lot of success getting people to recognize our work, but it’s all about the people we hire and the people around us,” said Kew.
Meanwhile, Bruckheimer admitted that he has no idea whether the movie he’s making will be a hit. “You think you know it’s going to be a hit, but you never know,” he says. “And I’ve lived in Hollywood long enough to see movies that test it from the rooftops, and no one showed up.”
Mr. Kew is an Apple enthusiast who joined the company in 1989. After leading the launch of iTunes (2003) and the App Store (2008), he led Apple’s expansion into television and movies with the Apple TV streaming service.
In his closing remarks at the Palais, Mr. Kew once again expressed his gratitude for winning the Cannes Lions Award for himself and Apple. “I majored in computer science and engineering, and I never could have imagined coming here and seeing what we have accomplished in this field,” said Cue. He added to Bruckheimer: “You are a true legend, but the best part is that you are still a true legend creating incredible things.”
