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By William Gallagher
Sunday September 09, 2018, 3:45 am Pacific Time (6:45 am ET)
The documentary narrated by Chiwetel Ejiofor was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and joins the animated film Windwalkers, Apple's first acquisitions for its next video installment.
Apple has bought the worldwide rights to "The Elephant Queen", a documentary by British filmmakers Victoria Stone and Mark Deeble, reports Deadline.
It was acquired by Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, heads of Apple's Worldwide Video division, after attending the Toronto International Film Festival, where the film was shown this weekend. The purchase marks the first feature film that the pair has bought for the company's next video service.
Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, Apple Video Leaders
This 96-minute documentary, told by Oscar-nominated actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, is the result of more than four years of filmmaking by Stone and Deeble to follow the life of a small band of elephants. The film shows the difficult decisions that the elephant mother must make to protect her young when drought strikes their usual waterhole. Athena, as the filmmakers call it, leads children in search of new foods and water. It's an unsurprising journey of success and the youngest members of the elephant family may be too weak to survive.
Before the Toronto festival, Apple also bought "Wolfwalkers," an animated feature film by Oscar-nominated director Tomm Moore. Written by Will Collins, it's the story of a young apprentice demon hunter.
These two acquisitions are significant because, although Apple has many agreements for video content, almost all of them have been television.
Although Apple has not yet made a formal announcement regarding developing broadcasts, the company is expected to work with a budget of more than a billion dollars. According to articles published in various specialized publications, Apple offers programming ranging from science-fiction drama with the Isaac Asimov Foundation to a comedy about the poet Emily Dickinson.
The company also did not reveal when and how it planned to launch the mass of video content, although rumors suggest that a subscription service is in preparation. The product integration with iTunes, Apple Music or the TV application, if any, is not clear.
Despite the lack of details on the launch or distribution, analysts already predict that stealthy video activity could be a major competitor of Netflix by 2025.
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