Cue, Bruckheimer Hopeful on F1 Sequel After $634M Run
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- Apple's Cue and Bruckheimer said at Cannes Lions they're "hopeful" for an F1 sequel, though no official greenlight has been issued; the original film grossed $634M globally and was Brad Pitt's biggest movie of all time, per Cue.
- Bruckheimer revealed Apple won the F1 rights after pitching to nine different exhibitors and studios, offering a 45-day theatrical window — and he said Apple left the film in theaters as long as people kept buying tickets before moving it to streaming.
- Cue argued against rigid release windows, saying Apple "can't have hard and fast rules" and that the company adapts its strategy per project, applying the same flexibility to TV and film.
- Bruckheimer teased a UFO thriller reuniting him with Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski, describing it as an "All the President's Men"-style story about government workers investigating unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs).
- Apple TV+ launched in 2017 with only original content — just five or six shows — deliberately rejecting the library-licensing model used by Netflix and Prime Video, Cue said.
- Cue received Cannes Lions' Entertainment Person of the Year Award during the panel, praising his team and saying "we're just getting started."
Why it matters: Apple's theatrical-first approach paid off with F1's $634M global run, and Cue's flexible, project-by-project windowing philosophy challenges the industry's hard-and-fast 45-day rules. With a sequel likely and a Kosinski-directed UFO thriller in the pipeline, Apple is doubling down on a small slate of prestige theatrical releases rather than chasing volume.
