It's been a noticeable trend that, as streaming has come to totally dominate many people's viewing habits, some cinema releases suffer hugely as a result. I'm not saying that people didn't go to see Fly Me to the Moon earlier this year because they knew it would hit Apple TV+ fairly soon, but it can't have helped the film's returns.
Just as was predictable, though, Apple has now set the movie live on Apple TV+, so you can watch it for free if you subscribe to what is, for my money, the best streaming service around right now. I'm baffled by how that release almost snuck by – only happening on the promotional clip you'll see below actually clued me into it at all.
That might not be the meatiest of previews for a movie, but it does underline one of Fly Me to the Moon's key selling points – absolute star power. In Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum, it has two incredibly bankable stars heading it up, with a decent spark of chemistry flitting between them, too.
The movie tells the story of a famous episode on NASA's history – that fateful first moon landing. It takes a novel perspective, though, by focussing on a purported backup plan that was being worked on while the actual astronauts prepared to travel. In case something went wrong with the long-range broadcast tech, NASA in this version decides to film a staged version that it might need to use.
Whether that actually happened or not is, of course, the site of feverish debate, and you can easily lose an hour or two in diving down the rabbit hole of researching the film's inspiration and which bits are true. Either way, though, it's a fun premise and sets up its leads for plenty of back and forth as they work to try to make the production happen.
When it did hit cinemas, Fly Me to the Moon wasn't much of a critical success, scoring 65% on Rotten Tomatoes – although its audience score should be noted. It's a way higher 90%. That goes to show that average viewers have had a really good time with it, a stat that bodes very well for its streaming release. Easygoing movies and shows have been the biggest hits in the last year or two, so Apple will presumably have some organisational fingers crossed that it can get redeemed on Apple TV+.
