Tom Hanks Praises Apple TV Plus for ‘Greyhound,’ Softens Earlier Criticism

Apple TV+ releases Tom Hanks’ “Greyhound” on July 10.

The WWII action picture is about the dramatic Battle of the Atlantic, between the Allies and the Nazis. When COVID-19 ended its big-screen movie release date in June, it moved to Apple TV+.

Hanks, however, wasn’t thrilled by the outcome.

The film’s writer-producer-star told the Guardian the switch was “an absolute heartbreak.” I don’t mean to make angry my Apple overlords, but there is a difference in picture and sound quality.”

This morning, on “TODAY,” Hanks spoke more highly of the streamer.

“Well, I’m actually thrilled that Apple TV is making it possible for everybody to see it,” he said.

“This is a magnificent gift that’s come to us because of Apple. Because COVID-19 did something heartbreaking to us all. It closed down the theaters. We don’t have the cinema. There isn’t anybody that doesn’t like going to see a good movie with 800 other people and coming out with something in common. Barring that, Apple Television has saved the day for us,” he said.

Most meaningful for him, his decade-long labor of love, adapted from C.S. Forester’s “The Good Shepherd,” will air.

“It is going to be viewable, and otherwise, we would have languished in a vault for a movie that, look, is 88 minutes of a thematic story that does speak to what we’re all going through right now. We didn’t know that at the time we made the film, we were just trying to make a lean, new spare version about procedures and behaviors about how difficult it was to stay alive in the North Atlantic in 1942.”

Now, Hanks added: “We can fill up the screen in living rooms around the world in one fell shot.”