According to a report by Variety magazine, Apple and renowned Mexican screenwriter, movie director and producer Alfonso Cuarón have signed an overall TV contract.
Such an ‘overall deal’ means that Apple has the option to automatically obtain the rights to whatever Cuarón might develop for the duration of the contract. Cuarón is best known for his film productions, not for TV shows, so it’s quite interesting that Apple signed a TV deal with him.
In recent years, Cuarón came up with productions such as Roma and Gravity. The former helped him to walk away with a number of accolades during this year’s awards season.
He was also responsible for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the first movie in the Harry Potter series to explore a darker, more adult direction. According to the Variety article, Apple’s deal with Cuarón is for multiple years, but it didn’t link a specific time frame to it.
Usually, such an ‘overall deal’ in the film and TV industry is signed for a period of between three and five years. How much Apple is going to pay Cuarón for his involvement at this stage also remains a mystery..
Since announcing the Apple TV Plus project, the company has signed only a handful of these overall deals. The firm has also suffered quite a few setbacks in the process.
It was, for example, recently reported that Apple had tried its best to sign a similar deal with Bad Robot, JJ Abrams’ production firm, but in the end Abrams decided to choose WarnerMedia over Apple.
This week, the Cupertino-based firm also announced that Apple TV Plus will be launched on 1st November 2019. This is far too early for the Cuarón partnership to deliver any results, which will probably not happen before late next year.