Dr. Dre’s high-concept TV drama for Apple Music has been shelved due to its rather graphic content, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Apple CEO Tim Cook reportedly personally dumped the six-episode series, titled Vital Signs, which shows various aspects of the music mogul’s psyche and starred luminaries such as Ian McShane, Sam Rockwell, and Michael K. Williams.
The problem? Characters doing cocaine, gun violence and a rather explicit orgy scene.
None of that content would likely make HBO or Showtime creatively blink, but Apple seemingly doesn’t want such material mixing with its brand (“No Sex Please, We’re Apple,” the WSJ snarkily headlined).
Apple can afford the write-off, of course, and has a couple dozen other shows in the works as it tries to belatedly get into the streaming video business. But it could find it more difficult to acquire certain projects in the future if Hollywood creatives worry they’ll have to pass a tech company’s CEO’s content purity test. Perhaps Vital Signs will get snatched up by another distributor.
Apple Music did not respond to a request for comment.
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