Jason Bateman exits Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans-led film Artemis after creative differences
Bateman reportedly clashed with production company These Pictures over the film's direction
Aux News Scarlett Johansson
Jason Bateman has exited Artemis, the Apple TV+ film starring Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans that he was set to direct. The Ozark star and production company These Pictures amicably parted ways on Artemis due to creative differences, Deadline reports.
Per the outlet, Bateman and These Pictures have tentative plans to collaborate on a different project in the future—that is, if their respective visions align again.
Few details have been released about Artemis’ plot, although it supposedly follows a space race. Former MCU co-stars Johansson and Evans will reunite onscreen (non-MCU heads may also remember their onscreen chemistry back in the 2007 romantic comedy The Nanny Diaries).
Bateman had initially also signed on to executive produce Artemis under the banner of his Aggregate Films production company. Johansson, alongside Jonathan Lia and Keenan Flynn, is still producing by way of These Pictures. Rose Gilroy, the daughter of writer-director Dan Gilroy and actress René Russo, will write the script.
Artemis marks a pivotal moment for Apple TV+, which acquired the rights to the film in a deal reportedly worth $100M. The coveted feature-film package is just one of Apple’s recent big-ticket purchases. The streamer reportedly paid upwards of $200M to acquire rights to Matthew Vaughn’s Argylle and an untitled Formula 1 film starring Brad Pitt.
Apple has been hard at work on bumping up its prestige cinema, and the efforts have been paying off. Its critically acclaimed film CODA won Best Picture at this year’s Oscars, making it the first film distributed by a streamer to do so. Apple could see even more awards buzz with the upcoming Martin Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon, which stars Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Jesse Plemons.
Artemis has yet to receive an official release date.
55 Comments
I will not stand for this The Perfect Score erasure 🙂
Hrm. Rose Gilroy seems to have zero experience writing films. She seems intelligent, but with $100 million in just the rights, Apple is taking a very big chance on an unknown.
Probably a safer bet than giving it to some dude with a long losing streak.
I often wonder about these humongous streaming deals. $100 mil just for the rights to a movie that could easily cost another $100 mil or more to make (with the big name stars plus special effects, etc). I get that it’s supposed to attract new subscribers and all but is there any way that this actually grosses over $100-200 million for Apple?
Back of the envelope calculation: let’s say the movie attracts new subscribers at $4.99/month and they keep Apple TV + for 2 years. That’s about $120 per person. If the movie only cost $100 million, it’d need to attract 833,333 long-term (2 years) subscribers to break even (if it costs $200 mill, it needs to attract over 1.6 million new subscribers). Maybe that many people sign up or stay subscribed who wouldn’t have done so otherwise, but I’m not sure.
They aren’t going to make their money back.Apple+ doesn’t release DVDs of it’s shows. It, and Netflix, are black holes where movies go to vanish depending on their metrics.
I think you have to think about Apple holistically. Because at the end of the day, they’re not really a streaming service. Yeah, that’s part of it, but they want to use Apple TV+ to get $4.99 a month from you and get you to buy an Apple TV and buy a a MacBook and an iPhone and buy an Apple Watch and then buy extra storage for those devices. All of that is subsidizing content. I’m sure we will reach a day sooner rather than later where accessing Apple TV+ will require Apple devices. That’s definitely the long game.
The script is already written, so it can be judged by the participants and financiers on what it is, not on it’s author’s track record. And the $100 million is for the whole package – script, Johannson, Evans, producers and (TBD) director – since the script got them all interested (and has kept them interested, save Bateman, apparently) it must have something going for it.
Let’s just say the script moved them
If you hire one Gilroy, you get a 10% interest in all the other Gilroys.
When a film project involves Johansson, Evans, and Bateman, I’m there for it because of Bateman. He’s a seal of quality in a way Johansson and Evans can’t really aspire to.
Johansson has been in a lot of amazing projects, Under the Skin, Ghost World, Lost In Translation, Marriage Story, etc all pretty iconic to the culture. And Evans seems like he’s coming into his own.
issa joke
I didn’t pick up on the sarcasm lol, my badzieee
Sure, they’re in good stuff too, but it seems like everything I catch Bateman in these days is killer.
Bateman? Quality? Have you seen the last two seasons of Arrested Development and all the crappy comedies he does?
thatsthejoke.gif
You know what? I thoroughly enjoyed Game Night.Yeah, I said it.
Game Night was fantastic. I know in my head that the joke would have worn out its welcome, but my heart wanted another 20 minutes of Rachel McAdams goofing around with a gun she thinks is fake.
I could watch her scrolling a web page on her phone with her nose for ever.
Was thinking this morning for nor particular reason how bottomlessly awful, “Couple Retreat” was.
Or “The Gift?”
The last two seasons of AD weren’t bad because of him.
Remember when he (and David Cross) asked Jessica Walter, who has a longer career than both of them put together, if she understood how Hollywood worked? Good times.
Oh, man.
That video of both of them tripping over each other to excuse, justify and minimize Tambor’s screaming at a petite septagenarian in HER own dam* workplace while she was in tears beside them at the memory of it, justified all the blowback they got for their ignorantly, callously adding insult-to-injury.
Even ‘nice’ guys will leave a woman hanging to defend a bud’s rep.
news to me
The Seal of Quality barks his approval at you: “Ork, ork”
Yeah, Teen Wolf 2 is fucking rad!
Artemis also an Andy Weir book, starring IIRC a young Pakistani girl, so seems on brand for scarlet johannson to be in it
it’s almost as if they want to make their money back possibly
Bateman wanted to shoot the whole thing with a deep blue color filter ala Ozark.
Or have a bunch of unnecessary nudity in the early seasons to keep the men entertained.
I like directing. I like titties. I wrote in a titty bar.
Wait Ozark has a bunch of titties in it? Now I’m interested in the wish.com breaking bad show.
The question is, will Apple release any of their shit on physical media?
Operation: Shit On a Cracker is a go!
Yes. Said physical media is an Apple TV box, though.
Do they not? That’s a shame, because Netflix, Paramount+ and others often do… I got started with Star Trek Discovery by renting the DVDs from my local library.
That’s a shame, because Netflix […] often do[es]…
Since when? Unless I missed something, there is no single Netflix original production available on disc. Not Stranger Things, not BoJack Horseman, no The Dark Crystal, not the Umbrella Academy, not Sense8, not Dark.
Why would you when your real goal is to sell Apple products?
Sounds terrible. What boring space race movie needs to cost that much?
It’s his move.
I loved that show so much. The one where they create a fake band called ‘The Dregs of Humanity’ with lab skeletons, big black robes and ropes is a goddamn classic, and I’ll hear nothing to the contrary. Plus, Caren Kaye was a goddamn smokeshow.
We’re the dregs!It was a great “to be continued” episode.Strangely, it wasn’t until about 4 months ago that I discovered the show wasn’t a spin off of his character from Silver Spoons
The relationship between him and his mother’s boyfriend Norman was a fun one. Like a supervillain who meets his match.
He was kind of the Ferris Bueller before that movie was made.
“And that’s why you always leave a note!”
Space race…like a literal race in space or a movie about the competitive space building between countries?
Big fan of Jason Batex.
Easily replaced by Don Cheadle or Mark Ruffalo.
Nice to see Apple TV+ making the same mistakes Netflix did 5 years ago
Wait, is this not an adaptation of Andy Weir’s Artemis? Damn, that’s what I’ve been thinking it was since I first heard this was announced.
Bateman is toxic and has been for decades. Looks like everyone’s going to learn that again all over again.
Prove it.