Oscar-winning actor Gary Oldman is the latest A-lister to headline an Apple TV+ series, as he agreed to star in Slow Horses.
News of the project recently came from Collider, and it’s essentially going to be a spy drama — but with quite an interesting a twist. The adapted material features six novels by Mick Herron.
Oldman will play the lead named Jackson Lamb, per Variety, who’s leads a group of disgraced MI5 agents banished to the “Slough House.” It remains to be seen how soon this will enter production, but the potential is vast.
Apple TV+ continues to land the big fish
Between this Oldman-led show and the original programming Apple TV+ launched with on November 1, the new streamer is really off to a strong start.
Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell star in The Morning Show. Aquaman/Khal Drogo actor Jason Momoa is the lead in another series, See. Then there’s Dickinson, a fun, female-driven showcase for young star Hailee Steinfeld.
Especially if players like Oldman continue to join the fold, Apple TV+ will continue to land premier talent it acclimates to the streaming world.
Just having the rights to this Slow Horses source material is huge. There’s multiple seasons worth of content to mine from it. Although it remains to be seen who joins Oldman in the cast, Graham Yost will be executive producing.
Yost is most known in TV for creating the successful series Justified. That show earned critical acclaim and earned eight Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He knows how to pace out a long-term hit.
Infrastructure to take risks
Unlike some streamers like Netflix, who produce original content by the truckload of their own volition, Apple TV+ has, well, Apple to back them.
In the past financial year, Apple earned a global revenue of over $260 billion. Of course a fraction of that would go to its streaming venture, yet that’s a ton of purchasing power for star creatives and prestigious material.
At $4.99 per month, Apple TV+ is the cheapest monthly subscription of all major streamers. Such a low price point is likely to continue to attract more customers, plus brand name recognition and quality, exclusive programming.
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Amazon Prime Video enjoys some of the same luxuries Apple TV+ does. Of course, though, it’ll take the latter a long time to match the prestige, quality and quantity of titles of the former. But this is all a great start for Apple.
Slow Horses represents a big buy, but one that could pay off huge thanks to Oldman being involved.