Apple, the world’s most valuable company, couldn’t find money for a Sofia Coppola show
Coppola’s series, an adaptation of Edith Wharton’s The Custom Of The Country, would’ve starred Florence Pugh
Aux News Sofia Coppola
Apple, the world’s most valuable company, has come upon hard times. Worth a measly $2.7 trillion, Apple is on the cusp of releasing an affordable pair of AR goggles that will revolutionize the art of seeing phantom lines after staring at a screen for too long. However, whether people will buy into their vision of wearing $3,500 future goggles for hours at a time is unknown. The goggles may be sold out, but it’s clearly a make-or-break moment for the company, especially after killing Sofia Coppola’s five-part adaptation of Edith Wharton’s The Custom Of The Country starring Florence Pugh. Per The New Yorker, Coppola says that the company charging $3,500 for iPhone-themed ski goggles “pulled our funding,” describing it, rightfully, as “a real drag.” Like the rest of us, Coppola “thought they had unlimited resources.”
According to Variety, Coppola described the project as akin to “five Marie Antoinettes,” which cost $45 million. We sincerely doubt her Edith Wharton adaptation would have cost $225 million, but either way, the promise of five Marie Antoinettes is worth the price. Previously, Coppola made On The Rocks, starring Bill Murray and Rashida Jones, for Apple, which announced Custom in 2020. The project fell out of public view after that, and in October, Coppola told the New York Times that Apple wasn’t into the main character, Undine Spragg, who is both Coppola’s favorite literary anti-heroine and a character the tech behemoth found “unlikable.”
“They didn’t get the character of Undine,” Coppola said of the company that produces The Morning Show and greenlit a second season of the Wharton adaptation, The Buccaneers. “She’s so ‘unlikable.’ But so is Tony Soprano!”
Maybe The Buccaneers is uniquely suited for watching on a screen that’s an inch away from the eyes.
50 Comments
ah man, just went and looked at the wiki plot and this sounds like it would have been fucking incredible (my fingers are dragging sadly across my apple keyboard).Marie Antoinette feels more relevant every year. Deep irony that the movie shows the aristocracy avoiding their reality by hiding in these curated living images until it was too late, is also the movie that laid a bit of a blueprint for social medias obsession with living an aesthetic. We’re headed to the guillotine.
Eh, I’m cool with that. I’ll be manning the guillotine, not under it.
Yeah, that combination of actor, director and material sounds right on. Hopefully someone else will pick up the deal.
Business Makes Business Decision
The more techbros take over the film industry, the more things like these will happen. I’m just sad because the 90s NY high society sounds cool. Instead we will just end up with ‘ghosted’. Oh hey we have to look forward to Invasion! All the things techbros like, right?
In this economy, a couple trillion dollars just doesn’t go as far as it used to.
Apple TV+ has had some of the best offerings of any streaming service. Bad Sisters, Ted Lasso, Slow Horses, Silo, Lessons In Chemistry, and Shrinking are all top-tier TV. I would go so far as to say Severance is right up there with The Bear, Fargo, and Succession. I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt – they’ve earned it. If they didn’t like it, then it must not be up to their standards.
For those wondering the show was about, it followed a rich, attractive white girl and showed just how rich, attractive white girls have the hardest lives of anyone and we should all shower them in pity and sympathy.
I have absolute faith in Sofia Coppola’s ability to tell that story so much better than you just did.Better than Edith Wharton did too.
I mean, yeah, she’d better. She’s had enough practice.
Quick tangent comment – I finally got around to watching The Bear over the last week and am bewildered at how that could be categorized a comedy. Yes there are some funny moments, but that’s hardly the thrust of the show.
They’ve canceled *almost* all of their shows after three seasons, so YMMV. They’re definitely pinching pennies and I’m pretty sure AppleTV+ is being imagined as a perpetual loss leader packaged with peoples’ phone bills.Compare this to Cobra Kai being on Season Six and it’s obvious Apple TV+ keeps things close to the vest.
Yeah… I don’t get the whole “They have a bunch of money, so of course they should have made this!” concept. I’m sure there are lots of projects they turn down, some get further down the road towards production than others. Their track record overall has been pretty good in the end.
This site thinks streamers are like the Canadian government, just handing grant money to artists for the good of Canada (or in this case, the world). It’s noble and all, but that isn’t what they do. And sure, if I were a big fan of Coppola, I’d be annoyed–but I like to think not irrationally so.
I don’t understand why so many people seem to think “high market valuation = flush with cash they can spend on anything” but okay sure let’s go with it.
In my experience, there’s an alarming lack of financial literacy and basic understanding of macroeconomics here in the States. FWIW unlike other giant corporations, Apple actually IS sitting on a mountain of cash that they can technically spend on anything (or at least they were when we studied them in school ~7 years ago). Instead of pressuring them to produce a movie that costs hundreds of millions of dollars and probably won’t make that back at the box office, I’d prefer if we just tax them.
Now see, I was just whining about the wording of the headline, but yes, what you say makes by far the most sense.And it’s what empowers the BBC to make movies and shows that may not necessarily drive the highest ratings but are still of high quality.
R.I.P. – Apple, the world’s most valuable company, kills Sofia Coppola
But if we taxed the rich, they might be sad for a little bit, which I’m told is the worst thing that could happen to a rich person. Does having enough money to provide for the basic needs of society really mean that much to you?
I don’t understand why people still trust AVClub headlines which are at best are overly sarcastic overreactions to news and at worst incorrect and misleading (as this one is). Even the write-up that this hack regurgitated says that the show didn’t move forward because Apple didn’t like the main character.
They’re not only exactly what you describe, but we all know that the site runs three different headlines at any given time for the same article and goes with whichever one proves to be the biggest clickbait.Which is why we’re now here.
I did NOT know that, but it explains so, so, much.
It’s interesting that I think (?) AV Club is the only Gizmodo site that still allows comments.
Also Gizmodo, Jalopnik, Kotaku…
I don’t think I’m alone when I say that the comments are the main reason I still come here ( I was a dedicated lurker during the old days of Good Av Club and only created an account/ started commenting in the past year or two, which is indicative of my poor sense of timing). The second that comments are disabled on this site, I’m out. There was a time when AV Club could still exist on the merits of its content and writing staff alone if need be, but that time is not now.
But even if it did mean flush with cash they can spend on anything, so what? This is such a strange article. Even if they were flush with liquid cash why does that mean they have to spend it on this show?
Yeah, I mean it’s someone’s job at Apple to make prudent financial decisions with the company’s money, and if they don’t see the return in a $200MM production of a gilded age comedy then they’re not risking that job over it. Even if they are sitting on $60 billion.
Eh… They can afford it. That’s not the issue. It’s not even complicated. The issue is that they may just not like the idea. But the article makes it seems like they didn’t like it because she’s a woman writing about a female main character, which also may, or may not be founded. Go internet gossip machine. The movie would probably make its money back, but with streaming, theres no direct metric that can verify if it would because streaming revenue is not DIRECTLY correlated with individual product value and companies are literally making shit up to keep the pyramid scheme going. I for one, would simply rather not invest in another Coppala, nepo-baby romp. But that just me.
Because Apple has over $250,000,000,000 (250 BILLION dollars) parked in offshore tax havens?
Which is still not the same thing as market valuation.
Hey, if a character is less likable than Godzilla, I don’t know what to tell you.
It’s called a budget.
“We sincerely doubt her”
So we’re done believing women, I guess.
The project fell out of public view after that, and in October, Coppola told the New York Times that Apple wasn’t into the main character, Undine Spragg, who is both Coppola’s favorite literary anti-heroine and a character the tech behemoth found “unlikable.”So it’s not that they “couldn’t find money” for the show but that they just plain didn’t like the show?
Then have Daddy finance the project.
kinda rules this website is so bad that it inspires its fans to defend the apple corporation.
There are just, like, so many ways this article could have been written to make readers agree with its point, and they chose none of them.
Lost In Translation is one of the most overrated films of all time.
Or MAYBE, they didn’t want to waste money on something produced by a fucking hack.
Your jealousy is showing
“Coppola says that the company charging $3,500 for iPhone-themed ski goggles”I mean…what does one have to do with the other? Just because Apple has money doesn’t mean they have to spend it on something they don’t want. This is a strange angle to take.
See Sophia, people are paying money TO APPLE to buy $3,500 iPhone ski goggles. Bit of a difference.Maybe they could charge people $3,500 to stream The Custom of the Country.
To be fair I didn’t mean to suggest Coppola is the one actually saying this. This is just an AVClub angle for some ridiculous reason.
Understood, but she seemed surprisingly confused about how business works as well.
True. I guess when your last name is Coppola you’re not used to not getting what you want in Hollywood. lol
Well, Apple has been fluctuating between the most valuable company in the world and the second most valuable company in the world, so, you know… tough choices need to me made.
AV Club buries the lede: “Apple wasn’t into the main character, Undine Spragg, who is both Coppola’s favorite literary anti-heroine and a character the tech behemoth found “unlikable.”
Spoiler alert, it’s their money.
She should meet some people in the industry, make connections, and leverage them to get her projects made. It’s tough out there for an outsider!
Isn’t Microsoft the world’s most valuable company? Regardless market valuation =/= cash on hand