Apple CEO Tim Cook has unveiled the company’s new subscription service, Apple TV+. Intended to compete with the likes of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, the service already has a stacked lineup of films and television series, with several of them featuring some of the most prominent names in Black Hollywood.
Here’s what we can expect from the new streaming service:
1. Swagger
Kevin Durant’s childhood serves as the basis for Swagger, a series Imagine Television as well as Durant’s media company, Thirty Five Media, have brought to Apple TV+. Reggie Rock Bythewood will be the showrunner of the series, which draws from Durant’s time with Amateur Athletic Union basketball in Washington D.C.
2. See
Alfre Woodard leads the post-apocalyptic series See, in which the world is filled with humans without sight. Society now has to find new ways to live and interact. However, everything changes when a set of twins with sight are born. Jason Momoa also stars. The drama comes from director Frances Lawrence, Steven Knight, Endeavor Content and Chernin Entertainment.
3. Truth Be Told
Octavia Spencer leads Truth Be Told (formerly known as Are You Sleeping), which hails from Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine. The series is written by Nichelle Trambelle Spellman and is based on the eponymous true crime novel. The show, like the novel, will revolve around a successful true crime podcast that reopens a murder case and threatens to destroy the life of the victim’s daughter. Serial‘s Sarah Koenig will act as a consultant for the series. The series also stars Lizzy Caplan, Mehki Phifer, Michael Beach, Tracie Thoms, Tami Roman, Ron Cephas Jones and more.
4. The Morning Show
Also from Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston, The Morning Show co-stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw as a “whip-smart and charming head booker of talent” at a prominent morning TV show. The series is based on Brian Stelter’s book Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV. Jennifer Aniston also produces with Witherspoon, and both actresses will also star.
5. Documentaries from Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Winfrey has also introduced her two new timely documentaries. The first, Toxic Labor, will focus on workplace harassment, according to The Verge. The second will be a multi-part documentary series that will address mental health.
What is particularly of note is how Steven Spielberg is a part of Apple’s rollout even though he has been vehemently against subscriptions services, notably Netflix. Now that Netflix has received Oscar clout at the Academy Awards thanks to Mudbound, Period: End of Sentence and Roma, Spielberg said, “I don’t believe films that are just given token qualifications in a couple of theaters for less than a week should qualify for the Academy Award nomination.”
Seeing how stacked Apple TV+ deck is, we can now surmise why Steven Spielberg has been so crotchety about Netflix’s success. Spielberg is working with the subscription service to bring back Amazing Stories, his sci-fi anthology series that ran on NBC between 1985 and 1987. Spielberg was also one of the many celebrities who took part in presenting Apple TV+ to its audience.
Variety documented how social media has taken Spielberg to task for talking out of both sides of his mouth when it comes to streaming services, with people asking how Spielberg will consider the Academy if he ever puts one of his films on Apple TV+.
READ MORE:
Apple Developing Scripted Basketball Drama Series, ‘Swagger,’ Based On Kevin Durant’s Childhood
Gugu Mbatha-Raw Joins Reese Witherspoon And Jennifer Aniston’s Morning News Drama At Apple
