New Apple TV+ Trailer Appears for ‘Dickinson’ Comedy Series

With Apple TV+ set to launch in the coming months, Apple is ramping up the promotions for the various new television shows that are expected to be featured at launch.

We already saw a trailer earlier this summer for the space race drama For All Mankind, released to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing; then over the past couple of weeks Apple first released a teaser trailer for The Morning Show, followed by a full trailer a week later.

In what now looks like it might become a weekly thing, Apple has published a teaser trailer for Dickinson, its new comedy biopic focused on the life of famed poet Emily Dickinson. Kicked off in early 2018, Dickinson is one of the earlier but less-hyped Apple original shows, which will star Hailee Steinfeld in the title role, who is known for her work in True Grit, Pitch Perfect 2 and Pitch Perfect 3 and Ender’s Game, among others. Jane Krakowski will also star as Dickinson’s mother.

The series has been billed as providing a comedic look into Dickinson’s world where she’s caught between the constraints of society, gender, family, and her own imaginative point of view. The teaser trailer itself presents a slightly dark view of a brooding Dickinson who is clearly trying to rebel against the expectations of those around her, and seems like it may be true to life for the American poet who was known for exploring themes of death and immorality and being reclusive.

November Launch

While Apple hasn’t officially provided any launch details for Apple TV+, a report last week pegged it as coming in November, listing a small staple of debut shows that would include The Morning Show along with Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories anthology, See starring Jason Momoa and Alfre Woodard, Truth Be Told with Octavia Spencer, and a documentary series on extravagant houses called Home.

While Dickinson wasn’t mentioned in that report, the description on the teaser trailer states that it’s coming this fall, so there may be a wider variety of shows available at launch than earlier reports suggested, and Apple is certainly working on a much longer list of shows, so there could be more titles as well.

Further, if the trailers for The Morning Show have set a trend, we may see a full trailer for Dickinson appear on the Apple TV+ YouTube channel next week, followed by additional trailers for other shows as Apple continues to try and create buzz for its new service.

Leaning Entirely on Original Content

Apple TV+ is going to be unique among major streaming services in that it will be built entirely upon the content that Apple itself can bring to the table. As such, it’s no surprise that Apple is trying to present as much of that content as possible before the service goes live in a few weeks.

While Apple hasn’t finalized pricing, nor how long of a trial period it intends to offer, some insider sources have suggested that it will be set at $9.99/month, like Apple Music and Apple News+. If this is the case, then Apple will definitely need to ensure that its own content is compelling enough — and flowing regularly enough — to not only draw subscribers in, but also to retain them.

At this point, it’s also not clear how Apple intends to release its original series’ on the platform. Rivals such as Netflix switched to binge-worthy whole season releases a a few years ago, and have had success with this strategy, but Netflix also offers a large library of third-party content which draws subscribers in, and has its fingers in over 300 original shows.

Apple TV+, by contrast, can currently rely on perhaps two or three dozen original titles, but at the same time Apple is also spending substantially more money on these shows — to the tune of $6 billion across relatively few productions, and as much as $15 million per episode for some. For example, The Morning Show reportedly cost more than the entire final season of Game of Thrones — a surprising metric considering that a newsroom drama doesn’t require the kind of effects budget of an epic fantasy, although it’s also probably fair to say that talent like Jennifer Aniston, Reese’s Witherspoon, and Steve Carell doesn’t come cheap.