Apple Paid Jonah Hill $20M to Direct ‘Outcome’

I’m sure you’ve heard of “Outcome,” or maybe you haven’t. It’s that little movie Jonah Hill directed for Apple, which has him returning to the director’s chair with a Hollywood-set dark comedy starring Keanu Reeves and Cameron Diaz. The film was shot in early 2024 and was only released a few weeks ago, straight to streaming.

Well, Puck’s Matt Belloni is reporting that, despite mostly taking place in rooms and consisting largely of conversations, Hill’s film cost Apple $80M. Furthermore, for some reason, a quarter of the budget went to Hill as director, who earned an insane $20M — the type of salary Tarantino and Scorsese earn per project.

How irresponsible can you be with money? Then again, Apple — a company worth $4 trillion — probably isn’t losing much sleep over it. They’ve developed a habit of throwing huge budgets at films that don’t always pay off: “Napoleon” ($200M), “Argylle” ($200M), and “Wolfs” ($180M). At least last summer’s “F1” was a hit, earning over $634M worldwide, but even that saw its budget balloon to a staggering $400M due to pandemic delays.

“Outcome” was lambasted by critics, earning 37 on Metacritic and 29% on Rotten Tomatoes. At the start, it made very little sense why such a star-driven movie would get dumped on streaming, but then we saw the movie and understood why.

The film is a cancel-culture drama about Reef (Reeves), a beloved movie star planning a comeback after five years, who’s blackmailed with a mysterious video that could ruin his career. Diaz appears in a supporting role as Reef’s close friend, part of his inner circle.

That $20M salary came despite Hill only directing one feature film, the 2018 skateboard drama “Mid90s” for A24. We’re not counting his self-therapy doc, “Stutz,” produced by Netflix.

Regardless, Hill will soon try to get rid of the stink from “Outcome,” as he has another film he’s directed, “Cut Off,” set to hit theaters in July. However, there has been zero promotion for it so far, no mention of it at CinemaCon, and, much like “Outcome,” it could be seeing delays in its future.