After a lengthy stretch in theaters that began October 20 and extended through the holiday season, Apple has announced that Killers of the Flower Moon, director Martin Scorsese’s latest epic film, will be available to stream on Apple TV+ starting on January 12.
The announcement, made on the Apple Original Films account on X (formerly Twitter), did not state if this would be a worldwide release, a U.S.-only release, or a release in selected markets. Several respondents to the X post say that the film is not listed as an upcoming release on Apple TV+ in Italy, for example.
Killers of the Flower Moon is an adaptation and dramatization of Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, a written historical account of the land and oil dispute in the U.S. between prospectors and the Native American Osage Nation that included a series of Osage murders.
The film has received critical acclaim and is expected to be recognized throughout the Hollywood awards season, which wraps up with the Academy Awards on March 10. Killers of the Flower Moon is nominated for several Golden Globe awards, including Best Motion Picture, Director, Original Score, and Screenplay, as well as acting nominations for Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Lily Gladstone, and is likely to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, following in the footsteps of Coda, which received the award in 2022.
Apple partnered with Paramount to finance and distribute Killers of the Flower Moon. it concludes its theatrical run with $156 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.
Originally released in theaters in October 2023, the film became available to rent online last December. The release schedule of theaters first, followed by online rental and streaming services later, will likely be the distribution pattern for Apple’s high-profile films. This accommodates the Academy of Arts and Sciences qualifications for its Best Picture Oscar category, where a film must be released in theaters for at least seven total days in ten of the top 50 U.S. markets no later than 45 days after the initial release. Another Apple movie, Napoleon, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Joaquin Phoenix as the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, landed in theaters last November and is expected to come to Apple TV+ in early 2024.
Scorsese has been critical of streaming services and in an essay for Harper’s Magazine about filmmaker Federico Fellini, he lamented how movie producers no longer care about “form” and prioritize “content,” but he also acknowledged that streaming “has been good for filmmakers, myself included.”
While Scorsese and other directors have been critical of streaming TV, they are certainly taking advantage of a home audience’s willingness to watch extremely long movies. Killers of the Flower Moon has a runtime of 206 minutes, which may have discouraged viewers from seeing the film in the theater. Scorsese’s The Irishman, which is on Netflix, is 209 minutes. When Napoleon is released on Apple TV+, it will be the director’s cut, which Ridley Scott says was 4 hours and 10 minutes during an interview with Total Film.
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