Taking a big bite: Apple releasing number of exciting projects in 2026 including Outcome, Lucky, Mayday

Coming off a strong 2025 with successes from the likes of The Studio, Pluribus and the film F1, Apple TV has signalled it plans for an aggressive year ahead.

The tech company’s streaming platform was one of the later entrants into the business when it launched in late-2019 and while it can’t boast gargantuan subscriber numbers (which it does not reveal) to counter Netflix’s dominance, its creative output is finally making noise.

For many years, Ted Lasso was Apple’s biggest cultural hit, and to a lesser extent, the star-studded but deranged Morning Wars (titled The Morning Show in the rest of the world).

Now, with a more robust and diverse slate of buzzy projects which also includes Slow Horses and Severance, Apple TV is displaying a heretofore unseen confidence. To that end, at a press day in Los Angeles, the studio revealed new details about a raft of upcoming releases.

OUTCOME

Keanu Reeves leads a sparkling cast with Cameron Diaz and Matt Bomer in this dark comedy movie, out April 10, about an actor who receives a mysterious video that threatens upend his career and life. So, he starts going backwards through his life to try and discover the culprit but also maybe make amends.

The film is written and directed by Jonah Hill who also has a supporting turn. It’s a comeback-of-sorts for Hill, who hasn’t been seen onscreen since 2023. That same year, he was accused of sexual misconduct, which he denied, and also by an ex-girlfriend of being a “misogynist narcissist”, which he never publicly addressed.

LUCKY

Based on a New York Times bestseller by Marissa Stapley and produced by Reese Witherspoon’s company Hello Sunshine (the novel had been a book club pick), it follows a con-artist who goes on the run after a big heist falls apart.

The series stars Anya Taylor-Joy who leads an ensemble which includes Annette Bening, Timothy Olyphant, Aunjanue Ellis Taylor and Timothy Olyphant. It will debut on July 15.

IMPERFECT WOMEN

Elisabeth Moss builds on her relationship with the streamer after Shining Girls by starring in and producing Imperfect Women, alongside Kerry Washington. The creator is Annie Weisman, the brains behind Physical, which was led by Rose Byrne.

The series is centred on a death which ruptures a friendship group of three women. In the aftermath, the emotional blast radius unearths secrets and characters are forced to confront what they thought they knew about each other and themselves. It also stars Leslie Odom Jr, Corey Stoll, Joel Kinnaman, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Kate Mara.

MAXIMUM PLEASURE GUARANTEED

Any comedy series that casts the supremely talented Tatiana Maslany has our attention, and even more so when it’s described as “dark” and with 30-minute episodes. So many good elements already! May 20 can’t come fast enough.

Maslany plays a newly divorced mother who becomes embroiled in some seriously dangerous hijinks – murder, blackmail and kids sports. It also stars Australia’s Murray Bartlett (he of The White Lotus fame), Brandon Flynn and Dolly De Leon.

THE DINK

Combine Andy Roddick playing himself and the expanding popularity of pickleball and you’re halfway to The Dink. A pickleball comedy was inevitable, especially since Ted Lasso made sports and Gen X men (here’s also looking at you, Owen Wilson) the key ingredients in a TV show.

The Gen X-er in question is Jake Johnson, a former tennis prodigy and fictional childhood nemesis of Roddick, who now wiles away the days coaching kids in the suburbs. Until he picks up pickleball and a new court partner in Mary Steenburgen. Then, game’s on.

The Dink drops on July 24 and also stars Patton Oswalt, Chris Parnell, Aaron Chen, Ben Stiller and Ed Harris.

WAY OF THE WARRIOR KID

Awww, it’s the little kid from Belfast, playing the onscreen avatar of young Kenneth Branagh, now ever-so-slightly more grown-up. He’s the star of this movie adaptation of a book by Jocko Willink, alongside Linda Cardellini and Chris Pratt.

The kid’s name is Marc, and he’s not good at sports or books and doesn’t have any friends. Life is hard. Then his uncle, a former Navy SEAL, moves in and teaches him that being courageous isn’t about physical strength.

MARGO’S GOT MONEY TROUBLES

David E. Kelley is back, and he’s brough along wife Michelle Pfeiffer in this series that also stars Elle Fanning, Nicole Kidman, Nick Offerman and Thaddea Graham. The eight part show is based on a book by Rufi Thorpe and is due for release on April 15.

The family drama-comedy follows a university dropout, the titular Margo, who has to carve out a life with a new baby and mounting bills, and not many options on how to pay for them.

CAPE FEAR

Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg are both on board as executive producers, so if this TV remake of the 1991 movie Scorsese directed and Spielberg produced is a fizzer, they’ll have to wear it.

The official logline says this series was inspired by the earlier series and stars Amy Adams and Patrick Wilson as a married couple who is confronted with their greatest nightmare – the release of a killer they helped put behind bars, played by Javier Bardem. This is out on June 5.

MATCHBOX THE MOVIE

We all knew this was coming after Barbie was such a massive hit. The only surprise is that it took this long, especially if you count backwards the decade-plus to The Lego Movie. So, Matchbox the Movie becomes the next cab off the rank for Mattel, and at least the general idea of “cars!” is easy enough to adapt.

This promised globe-trotting action adventure stars John Cena (OK, OK, we like John Cena), Sam Richardson (always good value), Jessica Biel, Teyonah Parris and Arturo Castro as a group of childhood friends whose gang leader, an undercover CIA agent, wraps them up in a mission to save the world.

MAYDAY

There have been a lot mismatched pairings in various versions of the buddy cop comedy, but how many people thought to put together Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh? Well, someone did.

Reynolds plays a US navy pilot who is abandoned behind enemy lines during the height of the Cold War, and Branagh plays a former KGB agent who loves American culture. Weirder alliances have happened. Watch out for it on September 4.