Buy Me to the Moon
At first, I thought Apple had a marketing problem. After all, Fly Me to the Moon had two bankable movie stars working with historical events in an era they could have fun with. Think: Mad Men meets the Space Race.1 So when the movie bombed at the box office, I assume it was simply because no one knew about it. It's really strange, but as good as Apple is at marketing their products – many would say the best in the world – they're not great at getting the word out there about their content. It's almost as if they don't know how. So yeah, that's a problem. But it's not the problem here. The problem here is that Fly Me to the Moon is bad.
I finally got around to watching the movie this weekend – on Apple TV+, naturally – and I can now confidently say that the reason it bombed is because it deserved to bomb. This movie should not have been released as-is. It's a lethal combination of poor plot mixed with the wrong stars with bad chemistry mixed with sub-par acting mixed with... honestly, nothing works. It doesn't even look particularly good. It looks like a staged version of 1969. And no one is believable in that world.
Anyway, who cares? Well, Apple probably does. By most accounts, it's the movie that led them to re-think they're entire theatrical strategy. That, in turn, led to the pulling of Wolfs out of theaters and the pissing off of the even bigger stars involved in that movie. That movie, it must be noted, also wasn't great. Not nearly as bad as Fly Me to the Moon, but just okay. And so it probably shouldn't have gone to theaters because it also would have bombed. So perhaps we can cut Apple some slack there for making a call they should have made with Moon. Of course, the way they handled Wolfs was stupid, but maybe Moon just got in their head that much.
But both of these, and Apple's general under-performance in movies – certainly relative to their television content, much of which is really strong – makes you wonder what is going on here? On the surface, they seemingly have a pretty big starfucker problem. That is, they just seem to greenlight anything and everything as long as the right acting talent is attached. They often have to bid for such projects and as everyone in Hollywood is well aware, keep paying top dollar. But that move keeps blowing up in their faces.
So presumably the theatrical pull-back is just as big of a signal to Hollywood itself that Apple's time as the over-paying sucker is over.2 Maybe. But again, if they really re-worked their strategy simply on the heels of this movie's performance, well, that was dumb. There's not much to take from Fly Me to the Moon other than that the path to box office success is not often paved by bad movies.
Look, I'm still hopeful for F1. That's the type of movie meant for the big screen – and actually, the biggest screen, in the form of IMAX. But I'm going to look at every other film project from Apple now differently. I'm just not sure those running the studio are actually minding the shop. Fly Me to the Moon is that bad. And Apple still released it – in theaters, no less. They ruined a goddamn perfect Frank Sinatra song.
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
1 This is all made more strange by the fact that For All Mankind, one of the first Apple TV+ shows, which happens to be in a similar vein, is great.
2 More generally, I do think it aligns Apple better with the right strategy for their films. But again, first and foremost, they have to actually be good.3
3 And don't give me Coda here. Apple full-on acquired that one for a zillion dollars specifically to plant a flag and win awards (which worked!). You know where that strategy didn't work? Killers of the Flower Moon and Napoleon.