Apple adds another star name to its growing roster. Alfonso Cuarón signed a multi-year deal with Apple on Thursday.
Cuarón won Best Director and Best Cinematographer this year for his film Roma. He was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay but lost to Green Book. Cuarón is the first filmmaker to be nominated for all three categories in the same year. In 2014 he won Best Director and Best Cinematographer for Gravity. Other credits include A Little Princess, Children of Men, Y Tu Mamá También and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Roma was a semi-autobiographical film based on Cuarón’s childhood that was created for Netflix. After three-week release in theaters, Netflix was able to qualify Roma for an Oscar consideration and put the film on it’s streaming service. The film was deeply rooted in the lives of his family and the indigenous women of Mexico. “As artists, our jobs are to look where others don’t. This responsibility becomes much more important in times when we are being encouraged to look away.”
Cuarón will be joining Damien Chazelleand, M. Night Shyamalan, Justin Lin, and Oprah at Apple TV+. While it is not known how long Cuarón’s overall deal with Apple is, it is being rumored to span five years. Esperanto Filmoj, Cuarón’s production company, will produce content exclusively for Apple TV+. Cuarón currently has non-exclusive deal with Anonymous Content; he will continue to work with that production company on other projects.
Apple TV+ launches on November 1st. The streaming service will offer lower price than it’s competitors at only $5. On its launch date, the streaming service will release nine original TV series. Apple will release three episodes for most of the originals, and then have weekly releases to complete the season. Tim Cook, the Apple CEO, described Apple TV+ as “stories that help you find inspiration, grounded in emotion, stories to believe in, with purpose.”
Here is the trailer for the highly anticipated Apple TV+ show Dickinson starring Hailee Steinfeld.