Oprah Winfrey partners with Apple TV+ for documentaries and her book club
Oprah? Apple. Apple? Oprah.
Some of Hollywood’s elite made a stop in Cupertino, Calif., on Monday morning as Apple sort of lifted the veil on its new Apple TV+ streaming video service.
Stars such as Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Jason Momoa and even Big Bird, and filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams took the stage to tout various original programming projects (most of which had already been announced) that Apple has in the pipeline for when the service launches in the fall.
But it was Oprah Winfrey who closed out the string of appearances.
The veteran talk-show queen revealed details about her multiyear partnership with the company, which was announced last summer. She’ll be working on two documentaries: “Toxic Labor” is a timely look at workplace harassment. The other project, not yet titled, will be a multipart series about mental health that she said she hopes will “replace stigma with wisdom, compassion, and honesty.”
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“The Apple platform allowed me to do what I do in a new way,” she told attendees gathered at the Steve Jobs Theater on the Apple campus. “They’re a company that reimagined how we communicate … [they’re] in a billion pockets, y’all. That represents a major opportunity to make a genuine impact.”
Winfrey also announced she will be using the new service to amplify her book-club efforts to create “the biggest, most vibrant, most stimulating book club on the planet. … I want to literally convene a meeting of the minds connecting us through books.”
There are no official details as of yet, but Winfrey noted plans to livestream conversations she has with authors directly on Apple’s devices.
“I want to reach the sweet spot where insight and perspective, truth and tolerance actually intersect,” she said.
Launch dates for the Winfrey projects were not announced.
Twitter: @villarrealy
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