I hope you weren’t planning to see the Brad Pitt/George Clooney crime comedy Wolfs in theaters next month. Out of nowhere, Sony has pulled the Jon Watts-directed film off the theatrical release schedule and it’s unclear why.
The star-studded Wolfs had been set for a week-long theatrical run beginning September 20th. The Apple Original was to be distributed by Sony Pictures, but that appears to no longer be the case. You can no longer preorder tickets for it on platforms such as Fandango.
Instead, Wolfs will be an Apple TV+ exclusive, debuting on the streamer beginning September 27th.
Furthermore, the social media presence has all but vanished. You can still get the trailer online, but not much else.
What’s gone wrong? Wolfs looks like it could be successful with a larger theater run, but Apple took a hit when they tried the same with another star-driven vehicle, Fly Me to the Moon. That could’ve made them reluctant to try it again. The initial plan was to give it a one-week run in select theaters before going to Apple streaming, but something has changed.
Watts, best known for directing the most recent Spider-Man trilogy for Marvel Studios, would’ve had his first non-Marvel movie in theaters since 2015’s Cop Car. That now looks to be off the table. In a recent Vanity Fair piece, Watts talked about his film going straight to streaming, and said that he still designed it to be seen in theaters. A shame nobody will, at least for now.
He said, “When we initially made the deal, when I was pitching it to everyone, that was before the last Spider-Man came out. So that was when the entire existential future of theatrical movie going was still up in the air. From that point on, the theatrical experience has really made an impression on me, of how valuable this thing is and how important it is. I always thought of this as a theatrical movie. We made it to be seen in theaters, and I think that’s the best way to see it. It’s funny. It’s filled with twists and turns. I tried to do some interesting things visually and I still think that the best way to see it is in theaters.”
“You want the movie to be seen, and if you maximize the way that people are able to actually see a movie, I think that is good—I watched so many movies that really influenced me on VHS because I grew up in a small town in Colorado, so we just didn’t have those movies in the theaters. But for me, the theatrical experience is still the number one. It’s up to the people that are able to make those decisions to put them in theaters for people to see, and just have the confidence that people will go see them. People want to go to the movies. People love the movies.”
