According to reports online, Apple has added “classic” movies to its TV service, and I imagine some will be shouting “damn about time”.
One of the main criticisms of the Apple TV (not written by me, mind you) is that its library isn’t big enough. Yes, I agree in the sense that its catalog is not as big as the others, but I disagree in other ways, because the point of the Apple TV is that it is small, and it builds a reputation for high-quality TV series (less so for movies).
Every service has to start somewhere, and they all started small. HBO wasn’t a giant when it started (it was more of a usurper in the vein of Game of Thrones). Neither Showtime nor Comedy Central, to name a few.
Part of Apple TV’s raison d’être is being a streaming boutique, and if it allowed catalogs for streaming in the vein of Netflix or Prime Video, what would differentiate it from them?
Recording these “classic” films is rough because none of them are new (Arrival is ten years old this year); they don’t come from one studio, but from Sony, Paramount, 20 selectionsth Century, Walt Disney, etc. and a very interesting selection of genres.
It seems like Apple is testing the waters, but what is this launch pad for? A wider selection, a buffer in case your own release schedule is a bit thin? It made me wonder a few things about why Apple didn’t buy Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. would have been a great fit
If there’s one service Apple TV seems to be aping, it’s HBO. High quality, (mostly) original content that tells a wide and varied range of stories. HBO is the standard that every other channel and TV service wants to live up to.
But Apple, and I bet it can be seen as either ambitious or arrogant, wants build something rather than getting it. It’s bound to take a lot longer, and questions have recently been raised about whether Apple really wants to spend a lot of money on a service that’s unprofitable. Still, most streaming services seem to be losing money, although there have been signs of a turnaround recently.
Still, buying Warner Bros. would have given them a huge library. It would have given it a built-in subscriber base and audience from HBO Max (140 million compared to Apple’s 45 million), which also means it would have given Apple TV scale and reach—reach to a lot of people.
Apple seems to think that anyone with an iPhone or iPad would be interested in its streaming service, to the point where it’s practically given people away for the past few years. It won’t create a streaming service, at least not in the long run.
Apple TV movies are weak sauce
There seems to be this amazing experiment that streamers indulge in when they make a movie and it turns out not to be very good.
The best Netflix movies tend to be the ones that have already been produced outside of the Netflix system and are shot at festivals. Very rarely has he developed a way to consistently produce good content. This is another reason why Netflix was interested in Warner Bros.
Others have been equally up and down. For every Project Hail Mary there seems to be a Masters of the Universe for Prime Video, but Apple TV was arguably the worst because it spent huge sums and lassoed star names and managed to produce limp and forgettable efforts. At least Netflix’s back catalog includes Beasts of No Nation and The Irishman; what exactly did apple do
Warner Bros. Almost all of the 2025 movies have been big hits, raised cultural awareness, and become part of the conversation you’d think Apple would want to be a part of. This Warner Bros. DNA has been in the works for decades, and it’s not something you can conjure up in an instant.
Still, Apple made Killers of the Flower Moon, but it seemed to come and go with that year’s awards season. Movies on Apple TV require persistence. They have to stick with it – you need your own version of The Sixth Sense, which they just license. Movies that people remember and come back to. Movies enabled by Apple TV are a reminder of just that.
Apple TV needs a hit factory
I respect Apple’s approach in the sense that it creates original content, but it can’t keep pouring huge sums of money into movies that are either so forgettable that you don’t remember them, or exist almost as art exhibits to watch, think about, and then move on from. You need things that people will come back to.
HBO has Game of Thrones and had the likes of Euphoria, The Wire, The Sopranos, and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Netflix had Stranger Things and it has One Piece. Prime Video has The Marvelous Miss Maisel and Reacher is currently in its fourth season.
They have shows that people keep coming back to. Apple TV also has: Slow Horses, Severance, Silo, Ted Lasso, but no own all of these shows (Ted Lasso is actually Warner Bros., Silo is a co-production with AMC Studios, and Severance was owned by production company Fifth Season until it bought the rights in early 2026). And as good as those series are, they haven’t dramatically increased the subscriber base. 45 million in seven years does not look good. Disney+ has about 132 million in roughly the same amount of time — almost three times as many.
Whether Apple likes it or not, the development and then expansion of recognizable movies and series is what people respond to. There’s admiration for what Apple is doing, but there’s also a kind of naivety about it. The established studios, most of which celebrated their 100th anniversary in the last five years, took decades to get there.
As a matter of principle, Apple cannot accept decades of losses, which makes it even sadder that Warner Bros. was there and didn’t even bid. I wonder if this will be a wise decision in a few years.
\
