Tom Hanks changes tune, calls new movie Greyhound's streaming release 'a magnificent gift'

A few days back Tom Hanks told of his 'heartbreak' that his latest movie Greyhound was side-stepping cinemas and going straight to Apple's streaming platform, AppleTV+.

However, it seems that the nicest man in Hollywood has backtracked a little bit since, and is now calling it 'a gift' instead. And a ‘magnificent’ one at that.

Speaking on the Today Show in the US, 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 theatres. 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.

Read more: Tom Hanks shames those not wearing masks

“Barring that, Apple television has saved the day for us. We had a magnificent movie that was not going to be seen because of the realities.”

Speaking to The Guardian a few days ago, however, he had this to say: “I don’t mean to make angry my Apple overlords, but there is a difference in picture and sound quality.”

He added that the shift from a theatrical release to streaming had been 'an absolute heartbreak'.

But he went on to tell Today: “It is going to be viewable, and otherwise we would've 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 behaviours about how difficult it was to stay alive in the North Atlantic in 1942.”

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The movie, which also stars Stephen Graham and Elisabeth Shue, is set during the Battle of the Atlantic in World War II, and is based on the novel The Good Shepherd by C.S. Forester.

In it, Hanks plays Captain Ernest Krause, commander of the USS Keeling (call sign 'Greyhoud'), part of a convoy of Allied ships trying to evade German U-boats.

Thus far, it's received middling reviews.

The Guardian called it 'tense and poignant', though Indiewire described it as 'a terse and streamlined dad movie that's shorter than a Sunday afternoon nap and just as exciting'.