Does Apple TV+ Watch Their Own Shows?

By Alberto Cox Délano | TV | October 30, 2023 |

By Alberto Cox Délano | TV | October 30, 2023 |

In a new profile by Kyle Buchanan at the New York Times, Sofia Coppola looks back on a career nearly 25 years long and nine feature films deep, resulting in a troubling conclusion: If even she has to climb up a mountain to get her projects financed, what is left for younger women filmmakers. She reveals that right before shooting Priscilla, $2 million in financing fell through, forcing her to cut a week of filming. Can you imagine that? Sofia of House Coppola, Career Launcher of the Dunsts, the Johanssons and the Fannings, Returner of Murrays, and Mother of Tumblr, in this day and age, she still has to struggle for budgets that are lower than a single chapter of a Netflix TV series event that nobody watches.

Even more distressing was her revealing that Apple TV+ (who platformed On the Rocks, her previous film) passed on financing her dream project: A miniseries adaptation of Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country. The reason the suits gave her was straight out of the ’50s, whether they be the 1850s or the 1950s: Its lead character, the social climbing Undine Spragg, was too unlikable. To quote the article:

But though the streamer has a reputation for spending big on prestige projects, Coppola said executives there weren’t keen on the lead character, the ambitious social climber Undine Spragg, and began to tighten their purse strings accordingly. (Apple did not respond to requests for comment.)

“The idea of an unlikable woman wasn’t their thing,” Coppola noted. “But that’s what I’m saying about who’s in charge.”

I guess the execs thought it’d be too similar to Julian Fellowes’ The Gilded Age, which is funny because it’s him who has been aping Wharton for his entire career; what better way for Apple TV+ to one-up HBO than by adapting the original flavor and not the pale imitation.

But what’s truly irking is that this excuse shows that the Apple TV+ execs aren’t even watching their own shows. Because if there’s one thing that the platform could boast, it’s that it has become a haven for great, complex women.

Spoilers ahead:

Let’s start with the flagship: The Morning Show is so richly packed with complex and difficult women, I’m wondering why they haven’t called Sofia Coppola for a guest-directing stint. Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) is brash, stubborn, and, most importantly, covered up for her brother participating in January 6th! Stella Bak (Greta Lee), meanwhile, is slowly morphing into the epitome of a girlboss in the bad way. But no one can hold a candle to Jennifer Aniston’s Alex Levy, a chaotic mess, an egotistic asshole, a woman that supported her predatory co-host Matt Lauer Mitch Kessler by looking the other way (while also being one of his victims), and ultimately, a woman that shields herself on white feminism to grasp onto money and power and, ultimately, become a billionaire. It is one of the most entertaining and compelling watches on TV right now.

How about something less popular? Haven’t gotten around to watching Physical, but I know that it’s all about a miserable and ambitious lead character (played by Rose Byrne) in a miserable era (the ’80s).

Or what about Karen Baldwin (Shantel Van Santen) in For All Mankind, who at one point cheats on her husband, distant but dutiful Ed (Joel Kinnaman) with the teenage son of her best friend? Or Ellen Wilson (Jodi Balfour), who becomes the first woman POTUS on a GOP platform despite being a closeted lesbian herself? And that’s not to mention Margo Madison (Wrenn Schmidt) becoming a Soviet mole because of a semi-unrequited love with her Warsaw-Pact counterpart.

And that’s just mentioning the female characters that have done inarguably terrible things. If you want female characters who do bad things and are complete trainwrecks, but ultimately you can empathize with or who grow, then there’s Bad Sisters, there’s Maya Rudolph’s out-of-touch billionaire in Loot, there’s the thawing of Rebecca in Ted Lasso, there’s everything Gaby (Jessica Williams) goes through in Shrinking, there are the ongoing arcs of Aneesha (Golshifteh Farahani) and Mitsuki (Shioli Kutsuna) in Invasion, and my favorite so far: Camille (Fleur Geffrier) in Drops of God.

Just give Sofia Coppola the money, Apple. As a champion of complicated women in film, having her make a series for you will guarantee you an Emmy, while it fits with the editorial line you have crafted… by accident.

Alberto Cox thinks Sofia Coppola’s best complicated woman is Marie Antoinette. Her film convinced this proud “The French Revolution Did Nothing Wrong” standard-bearer that she didn’t deserve her fate. Queen Victoria on the other hand…