Apple's F1: The Movie has crossed $293 million at the global box office, making it the tech giant's highest-grossing film to date. The movie has surpassed the previous Apple record-holder, Napoleon, which made $221 million in 2023, NBC News reports. Apple's three other theatrical releases fell short of F1's mark, with Killers of the Flower Moon making $158 million, Argylle drawing $96 million, and Fly Me to the Moon earning $42 million.
F1 is distributed by Warner Bros. Discovery and has benefited from a strong IMAX partnership, with $60 million of its total haul coming from IMAX screenings. In the US and Canada, IMAX accounted for a quarter of the movie's ticket sales. The IMAX deal also pushed Universal's Jurassic World Rebirth out of domestic IMAX theaters, though it appeared on IMAX screens in China. Variety describes F1 as an "inflection point" for Apple, with some company insiders feeling that the company should focus solely on television if the movie ended up flopping.
"F1 is an extremely important movie for Apple and for the industry at large," Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, tells NBC. "It's a perfect test case for how a streaming service can develop a film that's tailormade for the big screen while simultaneously promoting the film across the millions of small screens that their technological footprint puts directly in front of their subscribers." Despite its box office success, F1 isn't in the black yet. Production costs are estimated between $200 million and $300 million, with marketing adding another $100 million.
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Apple continues to grow its entertainment footprint after earlier successes with "Ted Lasso," "Severance," and "Coda," the latter of which was the first streaming film to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Apple's services chief, Eddy Cue, emphasized that the company entered the entertainment business to be profitable, not just to push hardware.
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