Eddy Cue & Jerry Bruckheimer “Hopeful” On ‘F1: The Movie’ Sequel

Apple‘s Eddy Cue and Jerry Bruckheimer is ready to get the team back on the track.

Speaking at Cannes Lions today, Cue said he was “hopeful” a sequel to the Brad Pitt-starring sports movie alongside Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who joined him for the fireside chat.

As of right now, there’s no official greenlight for an F1 sequel, but the noises sound like it will move forwards soon enough. That’s understandable, given the movie took $634M at the box office globally.

“I’m really excited because we’re going to come back and hopefully make another F1,” said Bruckheimer as the talk between the two executive powerhouses began on the main stage of the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France.

Later in the chat, Cue appeared to confirm the plan, saying: “We’re going to do it again. Hopefully, we’re doing another Formula 1 movie. Everyone wants to see another one. It was Brad Pitt’s biggest movie of all time. It was a great story.”

Bruckheimer replied: “So many people come to me and say, ‘Jerry, when I want to show my kids something, I’ll turn on F1 because I feel so good after seeing the movie.’ We try to entertain audiences around the world and tell them a great story, excite them, make them laugh, make them cry, make them feel better when they walk out.

“Thanks to Eddy, we had that opportunity to do it, and we’re so fortunate that he’s a sports fan and an F1 fan. Without him, I don’t think the movie would have gotten made.”

Cue, who leads Apple’s entertainment and services business as Senior Vice President, was in town at Cannes Lions to collect advertising festival’s Entertainment Person of the Year Award. Receiving it, he praised his team and said: “I can’t even say this is a dream come true, because I couldn’t even dream that way. I have an amazing team of folks I get to work with every day that have made this all possible. The great thing is we’re just getting started, so there’s a lot more to do.”

Apple’s windows

Bruckheimer revealed he had sold F1 to Apple after the tech giant provided the most “creative” theatrical window plan. “We pitched to nine different exhibitors and studios, and Apple came to us with the most creative way: Keeping it in theaters for 45 days,” he said. “As it turned out, they left it there as long as people were buying tickets, which was really a great experience for audiences, and then it went to streaming and was a big success for them.”

Cue noted that “you can’t have hard and fast rules” around windows, and that, “You have to be flexible… and move quickly.

The Apple chief added the same rules apply to TV and film. “One of the things that we try to do is not having rules of how things have to be – this whole issue of the 45-day window, and whether and for how many shows you put on all [episodes] at once,” he said. “We’re going to adjust and do the right thing for that particular moment, and so we shouldn’t make decisions ahead of time.”

As for F1, the choice was obvious, he said. “The 45-day window is up … and people are still watching [in cinemas]. Just leave it there.”

Bruckheimer also updated on his other Apple film, a UFO thriller that will reunite the producer with Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski, after Cue mentioned it on stage.

“It’s kind of All the President’s Men about what the government has been hiding, [and] what’s been going on with UAPs unidentified anomalous phenomena] all these years,” said Bruckheimer. “We found these two gentlemen who were working for the government and couldn’t quite figure out what was going on, seeing these anomalies, kept asking a lot of questions, and had a lot of doors shut up.”

Licensing content

Cue also addressed how streamer Apple TV had evolved since its launch in 2017, and why it has never bought library content a la Netflix or Prime Video. “We didn’t have any knowledge, but we had this belief that everyone was chasing a lot of quantity and not quality, and we’ve always been about trying to be the best, not the most,” he said. “We wanted to build television and movies a place where the best storytellers, the best creators, the best writers, the best directors would want to come work there and do their best work.”

“We did something that I believe that most people told me you couldn’t do, which is you can’t start a movie or TV [streamer] without licensing content,” he said. “We’ve always felt like it was kind of weird we were going to put our name on something we didn’t help create, so we said we’re going to start with something that [only offers] shows that we create, which meant we had five or six shows when we launched the service.”

He praised The Morning Show stars Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston as the “first people to believe” in Apple’s plan. “I thought the show was amazing, but we had to go and convince them, and obviously others wanted the show as well.

He recalled how he expected another studio to land the project, so he called a meeting with the pair and convinced them that Apple TV+ – as it was then called – would be launched off of the back of The Morning Show.

Cue also praised Apple’s studio chiefs, Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, saying, “I think we have some of the best television shows.”