Apple may have canceled the film’s wide theatrical debut, but Wolfs has become a hit with Apple TV+ subscribers. The company announced that Wolfs has become ‘the most viewed movie in Apple TV+ history’ and led to a huge increase in overall TV+ viewing.
New Apple TV+ film approach finds early success
Wolfs is certainly the highest profile movie debut that TV+ has ever had, thanks to the star power of George Clooney and Brad Pitt, and Jon Watts behind the camera (director of the MCU Spider-Man trilogy). Prior buzzy films like Killers of the Flower Moon had full theatrical runs before they hit TV+. Wolfs, meanwhile, was a brand new film that essentially went straight to streaming.
Mike Fleming Jr. at Deadline reports that the film “boosted viewership by nearly 30% week over week on the service.” It debuted globally in over 100 countries and “created the biggest viewership spikes in the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, and Germany.”
Apple shared the following quote with Deadline:
“When George, Brad and Jon approached us with the idea for Wolfs, it was an easy call — a crackling, fun movie starring two Oscar winners who everyone knows are iconic together,” said Matt Dentler, Apple Original Films’ head of features. “Now, audiences have chosen in droves to make Wolfs part of their weekend, making the movie a global blockbuster. We always consider Apple TV+ to be the home for the world’s most talented artists to create and deliver their best work, and it’s exciting to see audiences embrace that so overwhelmingly.”
It’s not entirely clear from the Deadline quote whether Wolfs already has more total views than any other TV+ film. That would be an impressive feat after less than a week of release. More likely though, the film just had the highest launch performance ever.
Either way, it seems that Apple’s new movie strategy is on its way to success.
Have you watched Wolfs? What did you think? Let us know in the comments.