Apple TV+, the company’s first streaming service is set to be available from November. The service is currently working hard to bolster its offerings with a host of original content. One of the big shows Bastards, has been scrapped.
Bastards was slated to be an eight-episode series about two friends who served together during the Vietnam War. The duo then have to return to normality. The show kicks things into gear when a woman they both loved is killed in an accident 50 years later. Their anger at this news and the resentment they hold against the world sends them on a shooting rampage.
The gritty and provocative drama has since been put on hold due to creative differences between Apple honchos and the show’s creators.
The Hollywood Reporter explains that Howard Gordon and Warren Leight, the showrunners, wanted to hone in on the darker aspects of the story, on the violence and anger. Apple on the other hand wanted the pair to focus more on an overarching story of friendship between the two army vets.
Apple reportedly wanted to focus on “aspirational programming, [which] wanted to ensure the series was focused on the heart and emotion of the central friendship.”
Specifically Apple and Gordon could not find a compromise, Apple was willing to push the release its way with paying a financial penalty to the disgruntled parties. At the time of writing, Bastards which was to star Richard Gere, is on hold.
Apple is in a mad rush right now to prepare for a November release as to undercut Disney’s streaming service debut that same month. Unlike Disney, Apple does not have a backlog of original content it can use to give itself some breathing room. It’s throwing U.S. $6 billion at the problem, but speedbumps like this are hardly helping.
Apple’s rallying cry to bring people to its service is its aspiration to make Oscar-contending films down the line, as well as its original shows such as The Morning Show which stars both Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon.
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