‘Christmas Carol’ Starring Will Ferrel, Ryan Reynolds Is Apple’s Massive Money Gamble

Variety is reporting that Apple just dropped a massive chunk of change on a new live-action musical adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol. Apple landed the film after a heated bidding war that pit them against Netflix, Warner Bros, and Paramount.

For Apple’s fledgling streaming network, heated means expensive. According to some industry insiders, they agreed to talent fees upwards of $60 million for just Reynolds and Ferrel. That doesn’t even include the $25 million that writer-directors Sean Anders and John Morris (“Daddy’s Home,” “Instant Family”) pulled in to create the film. Notice we haven’t even touch production budgets.

We don’t have any other info on the film right now, let alone whether it will be streaming only or also set for a big-screen release. Either way, this is the biggest move Apple has made so far to try and assert themselves in the content generation business.