Apple Studios Lands Coveted Jon Watts-Directed Thriller To Star George Clooney & Brad Pitt

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[size=37]Apple Studios Lands Coveted Jon Watts-Directed Thriller To Star George Clooney & Brad Pitt[/size]


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By Mike Fleming Jr

Mike Fleming Jr

Co-Editor-in-Chief, Film
@DeadlineMike

More Stories By Mike

September 29, 2021 6:00pm

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(L-R) George Clooney, Jon Watts and Brad PittAP
EXCLUSIVE: Apple Studios has landed yet another high-caliber movie package, making a deal for an untitled film that Spider-Man director Jon Watts will write and direct, with George Clooney and Brad Pitt starring. The film will get a robust theatrical release as part of this.
The film will be produced by Watts, Clooney’s Smokehouse Pictures and Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment. Watts moved right from the Sundance indie drama Cop Car to the Marvel Spider-Man trilogy. Oscar winners Clooney and Pitt starred together in the Ocean’s Eleven franchise. Haven’t heard the pricetag, but I’m sure it falls in line with a lot of the recent deals for star packages. I have heard that between Clooney and Pitt, they left an eight-figure sum on the table to ensure the theatrical release component.

RELATED STORY

George Clooney, Brad Pitt And Jon Watts Thriller Package Has Studios & Streamers Bidding

The thriller follows two lone-wolf fixers assigned to the same job. The package hit the market last week, and seven to 10 bidders materialized. The combatants included Sony, Lionsgate, Annapurna, MGM, Universal, Warner Bros, Apple, Netflix and Amazon.
For Apple toppers Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, this becomes the latest giant film package to add to their slate. Others include Emancipation, a new film from director Antoine Fuqua, and starring and produced by Academy Award nominee Will Smith; the highly sought-after Killers of the Flower Moon, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro; Spirited, a musical rendition of Charles Dickens’ classic holiday story starring Will Ferrell, Ryan Reynolds and Octavia Spencer; and Raymond and Ray, a new feature film starring Ewan McGregor and Ethan Hawke.
All this comes after the Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso won seven Emmys including Best Comedy; the label has won a total of 12 Emmys, impressive for a venture that launched just under two years ago.
Clooney next premieres The Tender Bar, the adaptation of the J.R. Moehringer memoir that stars Ben Affleck for Amazon. The film bows at the London Film Festival. Pitt is coming off winning the Oscar for Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He is shooting the Damien Chazelle-directed Babylon as part of that star-studded cast for Paramount, after wrapping the David Leitch-directed Bullet Train for Sony Pictures.
CAA brokered this package.

Mmm, I wonder what Amal thinks of that. Apple are currently using Uyghurs rounded up           and imprisoned by the Chinese government in their factories...........

She may not like it, but I doubt she has much influence over George's business decisions when it comes to his movies.

May be a fine line, Lizzy. I guess it could be argued that this is a different part of the          company and does not involve such a workforce.

Or it might be used by the cast as a talking point to change the way things are done...

Ricky Gervais, Golden Globes comments on the subject
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PAN- The link you posted led me to something else (I might have messed up) but I love Ricky Gervais  so I searched him and found his monologue. Absolutely spot on! And hilarious! [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] 

I think your point about being able to mentally separate one facet of a business from another is valid. It's a way to justify working with a company whose operating principles might not be the best overall, but the division you're working with is fairly decent. I doubt that most people involved on the creative end would comment on the company's practices in a division that doesn't affect their project.

Yep, but as we know, George has enormous clout, and if he wanted to do something he could. Smokehouse are the producers of this too,so more power to their elbow. If he were to do something it would likely take the form of a journalist asking a related question at a premiere
(something he would have prepared for anyway).

A propos of this here's an interesting article in The Guardian which basically says the likes of Apple and Amazon are actively fighting any climate change laws that may come out of the Biden administration.......What?? And why? 

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[size=28]Apple and Disney among companies backing groups against US climate bill[/size]
[size=14]Amazon and Microsoft also supporting groups fighting legislation despite promises to combat the climate crisis, analysis finds[/size]

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[size=10][size=10] The Apple Inc. logo is seen hanging at the entrance to the Apple store on 5th Avenue in New York Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters[/size][/size]

[size=14][size=14]Oliver Milman
@olliemilman
Fri 1 Oct 2021 02.00 EDT

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• [url=https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Apple and Disney among companies backing groups against US climate bill&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2F2021%2Foct%2F01%2Fapple-amazon-microsoft-disney-lobby-groups-climate-bill-analysis&CMP=share_btn_tw][/url]
  
  

[size=14]Some of America’s most prominent companies, including Apple, Amazon, [size=14]Microsoft and Disney, are backing business groups that are fighting landmark climate legislation, despite their own promises to combat the climate crisis, a new analysis has found.
A clutch of corporate lobby groups and organizations have mobilized to oppose the proposed $3.5tn budget bill put forward by Democrats, which contains unprecedented measures to drive down planet-heating gases. The reconciliation bill has been called the “the most significant climate action in our country’s history” by Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the US Senate.

Most large US corporations have expressed concern over the climate crisis or announced their own goals to cut greenhouse gases. Jeff Bezos, one of the world’s richest people, has said that the climate crisis is the “biggest threat to our planet” and the company he founded, Amazon, has created a pledge for businesses to cut their emissions to net zero by 2040. Microsoft has promised to be “carbon negative” within a decade from now and Disney is aiming to use only renewable-sourced electricity within the same timeframe.
But these leading companies, and others, either support or actively steer the very lobby groups that are attempting to sink the bill that carries the weight of Joe Biden’s ambitions to tackle the climate crisis, threatening one of the last major legislative efforts that will help decide whether parts of the world plunge into a new, barely livable climatic state.
“Major corporations love to tell us how committed they are to addressing the climate crisis and building a sustainable future, but behind closed doors, they are funding the very industry trade groups that are fighting tooth and nail to stop the biggest climate change bill ever,” said Kyle Herrig, president of watchdog group Accountable.US, which compiled the analysis.
None of the companies contacted by the Guardian would rebuke the stance of the lobby groups they are part of and none said they would review their links to these groups.
“Hiding behind these shady groups doesn’t just put our environment at risk – it puts these companies’ household names and reputations in serious jeopardy,” Herrig said.
The US Chamber of Commerce has vowed to “do everything we can to prevent this tax raising, job killing reconciliation bill from becoming law”. The leading business lobby group’s board includes executives from companies including Microsoft, Intuit, United Airlines and Deloitte, which have all expressed concern over climate change – Deloitte even includes teaching the climate crisis to employees in its staff training – and have made various promises to reduce emissions.
Another group, the Business Roundtable, has said it is “deeply concerned” about the passage of the bill, largely because it raises taxes on the wealthy. The organization is made up of company chief executives, including Apple’s Tim Cook, who has called for stronger action on the climate emergency from governments and businesses. Other members include Andy Jassy, chief executive of Amazon, Sundar Pichai, who heads Google’s parent company Alphabet, and Darren Woods, chief executive of the oil giant Exxon.
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a trade group that includes Bayer and AstraZeneca among its members, has run adverts attacking the proposed bill. The Rate Coalition, another lobby group that has Disney, FedEx and Verizon as members, is also planning an advertising blitz to help kill off the legislation while the National Association of Manufacturers – backed by Johnson&Johnson, Dow and Goodyear – has said it is attempting to upend the bill “in every way you can imagine”.
This blitz threatens legislation that already faces a perilous path through Congress, with the president needing every Senate Democrat to vote for the package for it to pass. Joe Manchin, the centrist Democrat from West Virginia who is a major recipient of donations from the fossil fuel industry, has said the climate section of the bill “makes no sense” and has demanded that subsidies for coal, oil and gas remain in place. Republicans universally oppose the bill.
If enacted, the bill would establish a system to phase out emissions from the US electricity system, provide payments to prop up carbon-free nuclear energy and support the adoption of electric vehicles.
As the first major attempt at climate legislation in more than a decade, the bill comes at a time when scientists warn the world is rapidly running out of time to avoid catastrophic climate change. The legislation’s failure would not only wound Biden politically, it would also likely hinder attempts to prod other countries into more drastic action at crucial upcoming UN climate talks in Scotland.
“This is a historic chance to end fossil fuel subsidies and invest in a livable future,” said Lukas Ross, climate program manager at Friends of the Earth. “We can’t waste this opportunity to pass meaningful climate legislation because there might not be another.”[/size]
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PAN- They said it right there in the article: taxes. These corporations can prop up their images by making promises but their main concern is profits and keeping as much as they can. They won't really care about saving the planet until it comes down to saving their own skins - and by then it will probably be too late.

I wish the national media would publish a list of all the companies funding groups and politicians trying to block the legislation and post it over and over under the heading "These are the companies stealing your children's future". Maybe something like that would wake people up.

Yep, I'd read it, Lizzy - but I suppose I'm appalled by their total lack of ethics. Some of the names on that list really surprise me on that basis.

Really glad we have papers like The Guardian who publish many articles like this. Let's see if the NYT follow it up - not sure we'll see it in the Washington Post  given that Amazon Man owns that!

PAN - Nothing surprises me anymore. For many in this country there is no such thing as ethics or civic responsibility, either on a personal or corporate basis. It's all about power and the almighty dollar. Much of what we are becoming makes me ashamed to live here.

I’m appalled but not surprised by these corporations talking out of both sides of their mouths,  No wonder we have made little progress in attacking climate change.  In this country the Republican (Trump) Party is completely opposed to addressing any serious strategy to combat our climate crisis.  It’s only the Democratic Party that cares.  The bottom line is money and power.  If Biden’s plan doesn’t pass this country probably won’t see any significant progress made for another decade on this front, especially if the Republicans get back in power.  And no guarantee that if the legislation does pass and becomes law that the next time the Trump Party holds the majority in Congress that they will attempt to dismantle the law.

If the public is aware of these hypocritical stands by the likes of Amazon, Apple and Microsoft they could boycott their products.  I don’t think the public is as a whole is passionate enough to do that.  But nothing speaks louder to these corporations than losing revenue.  

Celebrities including George could make a stand against these companies but maybe they do try to justify it all by separating the subsidiaries that they do business with.  Not cool IMHO.

You're right, Donnamarie, about the public being disengaged in some of this stuff. Amazon is the classic example of the level of people's concern being  about what they can get for a really cheap price versus the legitimacy of the transaction. 

It says a lot that Boris Johnson was in Washington a couple of weeks back meeting among others, Mr Bezoz, to ask him to pay a million in tax he owed to the UK.

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Again an example of the Federal Society, Koch or whoever...now calling themselves NoLabels
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Donnamarie, I really don't think enough people woud boycott amazon to make a dent  in their profits. People want convenience and especailly now with covid,shopping on line and next day delivery  is what matters. We have lost so
many smaller businesses to Amazon. People don't want to have to search for things they know they can get whatever it
is they need on amazon. There are also so many willfully ignorant people who don't believe in climate change and won't try to learn the facts.

You’re right on all your points annemarie.   I’m guilty myself.  I try to shop local for things so I don’t have to get on Amazon but I’m finding that a lot of stores are out of stock on items.  I then find them on Amazon and I just give in.

Yep. And that of course is what they've figured out and to hell with damage to the planet
    by chucking unsold stuff into landfill which then goes into the seas and pollutes them as well.

    The fact that they buy huge stocks means that they can outbid any small store or business
    which then goes out of business because they can't buy the goods as cheaply. Very very sad
    and definitely unethical. And their leader never pays any tax. Plus most of the goods come 
    from China (who's shared quite a lot with the world lately!)

    Here's an interesting report on the BBC News website today:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-africa-58836618

     Love your monthly bulletins, Donnamarie!