Tom Hanks is very politely upset about his new movie going straight to Apple TV+
Just last week, Tom Hanks rightfully tsk-tsk’d citizens refusing to adhere to the most basic guidelines to avoid the spread of COVID-19. America’s dad wasn’t mad. He was just disappointed. That disappointment continues this week as Hanks spoke with The Guardian about his upcoming film Greyhound, which was sold by Sony Pictures to Apple for a reported $70 million back in May. Despite being admittedly upset about shifting Greyhound’s release from theatrical to streaming, Hanks was typically polite about the situation, which he calls “an absolute heartbreak,” adding, “I don’t mean to make angry my Apple overlords, but there is a difference in picture and sound quality.”
Greyhound was originally set to debut on May 8 but shifted to Father’s Day weekend (a more appropriate date, to be honest) when theaters closed due to COVID-19. As those closures remained in place and re-opening dates continued to shift, Sony quickly made the decision to sell the drama to Apple, which will exclusively debut Greyhound on July 10 via its Apple TV+ platform. The World War II drama is based on a screenplay by Hanks (and adapted from the C.S. Forester novel The Good Shepherd), who stars as Ernest Krause, a U.S. Navy Commander leading an Allied convoy across the Atlantic while German U-boats follow in pursuit—culminating in what’s known as the longest and largest naval battle in history.
Hanks’ new film isn’t the only thing in his life that’s been impacted by COVID-19; the actor and his wife, Rita Wilson, were both diagnosed with the coronavirus back in March and subsequently quarantined in Australia, where Hanks was filming an Elvis Presley biopic. Hanks described the couple’s experience with COVID-19 and assured fans that he and Wilson are both “fine”:
Our discomfort because of the virus was pretty much done in two weeks and we had very different reactions, and that was odd. My wife lost her sense of taste and smell, she had severe nausea, she had a much higher fever than I did. I just had crippling body aches, I was very fatigued all the time and I couldn’t concentrate on anything for more than about 12 minutes. That last bit is kinda like my natural state anyway.