Isaac Asimov Meets Steven Spielberg In One Of Apple TV's Biggest Sci-Fi Streaming Hits
Adam Bentz is a senior news writer at ScreenRant, where he has authored nearly 5,000 articles, including features and lists. He studied creative writing and English with a concentration in screenwriting at Southern New Hampshire University and interned as a writer/journalist for The Borgen Project, an influential organization that fights global poverty.
However, one of his proudest achievements is editing a Leonardo DiCaprio freakout compilation that has over 150K views on YouTube. Adam also fancies himself an amateur film critic on his personal website.
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Isaac Asimov helped shape the genre of science fiction with his Foundation books, a sweeping tale of a galactic empire on the brink of collapse, which was later adapted into Apple TV's hit series. Steven Spielberg, meanwhile, has brought sci-fi to life on the big screen with his movies, including Jurassic Park (1993), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Minority Report (2002), War of the Worlds (2005), Ready Player One (2018), and Disclosure Day (2026).
Isaac Asimov and Steven Spielberg's styles converge in I, Robot, which is now one of the biggest sci-fi hits streaming on Apple TV. Directed by Alex Proyas, with a script written by Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman, the 2004 film stars Will Smith as a technophobic cop investigating a crime that may have been committed by a robot, set in the year 2035.
I, Robot Is One Of Apple TV's Latest Sci-Fi Hits
Now Playing · Sound On How Well Do You Know Apple TV+? “Believe.”
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MankindWhat if...?
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Apple TV+’s breakout comedy about a relentlessly optimistic American football coach hired to manage an English Premier League team won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series back-to-back in 2021 and 2022. Who plays Ted?
✓ Correct! Jason Sudeikis — the former SNL cast member who originally played Ted in 2013 NBC Sports Premier League promos. He co-created the series with Brendan Hunt (who plays Coach Beard), Bill Lawrence, and Joe Kelly. Sudeikis won back-to-back Emmys for Best Actor in a Comedy. A Season 4 is officially in production for 2026.
✗ Cut it off! The answer is Jason Sudeikis. Jon Hamm is Mad Men (and later showed up as himself in Ted Lasso Season 2). Will Ferrell hasn’t done an Apple TV+ show. Brendan Hunt plays Coach Beard — Ted’s silent assistant — and was a co-creator, but Sudeikis is the title character and won two Best Actor Emmys for the role.
02
Ben Stiller-directed sci-fi thriller Severance became a cultural phenomenon with its eerie Macrodata Refinement floors and “praise Kier” cultishness. What is the name of the sinister biotech corporation at its centre?
✓ Correct! Lumon Industries — the unsettling corporation founded by the cult-like Eagan family, whose “severance procedure” surgically splits an employee’s work memories from their outside life. Weyland-Yutani is from Alien; Umbrella Corp is Resident Evil; Apex is fictional but not this show. Lumon’s retro-futuristic aesthetic (beige Macbook-era CRTs and long hallways) has become instantly iconic.
✗ Cut it off! The answer is Lumon Industries. Weyland-Yutani is the Alien franchise’s evil megacorp. Umbrella Corp runs Resident Evil. Apex isn’t a recognisable fictional company. Lumon is the creepy biotech behind Severance — with its Kier Eagan cult of personality, waffle parties, and surgically separated “innies” and “outies.”
03
In March 2022, Apple TV+ made streaming history when one of its films became the first from any streaming service to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Which film was it?
✓ Correct! CODA (Children of Deaf Adults) — Sian Heder’s drama about a hearing daughter of a deaf family in Massachusetts — won Best Picture at the 94th Academy Awards, beating The Power of the Dog (the heavy favourite). Troy Kotsur’s supporting-actor win was the first for a deaf male actor. The Morning Show is a TV series, Greyhound is Apple’s Tom Hanks WWII film, Killers is an Apple film but was released later.
✗ Cut it off! The answer is CODA. The Morning Show is a series. Greyhound is Apple’s 2020 Tom Hanks WWII film (a solid hit but not an Oscar winner). Killers of the Flower Moon — Scorsese’s 2023 Apple release — was nominated for 10 Oscars but won none. CODA’s 2022 Best Picture win made Apple the first streamer to break through in the category.
04
The scruffy, flatulent, ruthlessly cynical MI5 exile Jackson Lamb — running the Slough House dumping ground for disgraced spies — is one of modern TV’s most acclaimed performances. Which veteran actor plays him?
✓ Correct! Gary Oldman — Oscar winner for Darkest Hour — plays Jackson Lamb opposite Kristin Scott Thomas’ glacial Diana Taverner. The series adapts Mick Herron’s Slough House novels and has become Apple’s most quietly successful long-running drama, renewed through at least Season 6. Oldman has repeatedly called Lamb his favourite role of his career.
✗ Cut it off! The answer is Gary Oldman. Anthony Hopkins hasn’t done an Apple TV+ series of this prominence. Colin Firth was reportedly in contention for different spy roles (including Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’s George Smiley, which Oldman also played). Jim Broadbent appears elsewhere. Oldman’s Lamb is one of TV’s most delightfully unpleasant protagonists.
05
Apple TV+’s flagship prestige drama on launch day — a #MeToo-era newsroom saga about the on-air partners of a fictional morning TV show — was anchored by two huge Hollywood names as its co-leads and producers. Who are they?
✓ Correct! Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon — both also executive producers — anchor the show as Alex Levy and Bradley Jackson. Reportedly each earned a then-record $1.1 million per episode. Steve Carell co-stars as the disgraced anchor whose firing kicks off the entire series. Aniston earned her first Emmy nomination for dramatic work for the role in 2020.
✗ Cut it off! The answer is Jennifer Aniston & Reese Witherspoon. Witherspoon & Dern did Big Little Lies (on HBO). Kidman was also in Big Little Lies. Meryl Streep joined The Morning Show in later seasons (a supporting role). Aniston and Witherspoon lead and produce — both reportedly making $1.1M per episode in one of streaming’s richest-ever deals.
06
Ronald D. Moore’s alt-history space epic For All Mankind — one of Apple TV+’s original launch titles — jumps forward in time each season. What is the show’s central point of divergence from real history?
✓ Correct! The Soviets beat Apollo 11 to the Moon in June 1969 — keeping the Space Race alive and turning NASA into a permanently ascendant institution. That single change cascades across decades: women astronauts are pushed early, lunar bases are built in the 1970s, Mars is reached in the 1990s, and so on. Each season time-jumps ahead a decade, showing how this different history snowballs.
✗ Cut it off! The answer is the Soviets landing on the Moon first — June 1969, beating Apollo 11. That single change drives everything: continued funding, expanded NASA, women astronauts, a permanent lunar base by the 1980s, Mars missions in the 1990s. Aliens aren’t in the show. Mars gets colonised, but much later. NASA remains public throughout the series.
07
Apple TV+ launched with a small lineup of nine originals — including The Morning Show, See, Dickinson, and For All Mankind — at the aggressively low price of $4.99 a month. When did the service officially go live?
✓ Correct! Apple TV+ launched on November 1, 2019 — just before Disney+ beat it to market by 11 days. Apple went in with a tiny roster of about nine originals (versus Disney+’s massive back catalogue) but compensated with $1 billion in original content spend and a one-year free trial for Apple hardware buyers. Its quality-over-quantity bet has since paid off in awards and prestige.
✗ Cut it off! The answer is November 2019 — specifically November 1st, just 11 days before Disney+ launched (a deliberate piece of scheduling brinkmanship). Apple launched with only nine originals and priced at $4.99/month to try to get ahead of Netflix and Disney. The service went live just before the pandemic turbocharged streaming growth everywhere.
08
Apple TV+’s post-apocalyptic thriller Silo — starring Rebecca Ferguson in a 10,000-person underground society — adapts a bestselling series of novels originally self-published as a 2011 short story. Who wrote them?
✓ Correct! Hugh Howey self-published Wool as a short story on Amazon in 2011; word-of-mouth turned it into a trilogy (Wool, Shift, Dust) and eventually a publishing phenomenon. Apple’s adaptation, retitled Silo, premiered in 2023. Andy Weir wrote The Martian and Project Hail Mary. Blake Crouch wrote Dark Matter and Recursion. Ted Chiang wrote the novella that became Arrival.
✗ Cut it off! The answer is Hugh Howey. Andy Weir is The Martian/Project Hail Mary. Blake Crouch is Dark Matter/Recursion (also recently adapted to Apple TV+, hence the mix-up). Ted Chiang is Arrival’s source. Howey’s Wool trilogy — Silo’s source — started as a self-published Amazon short story in 2011 before exploding into a bestseller.
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Over two decades after its theatrical debut, I, Robot is No. 6 on Apple TV's Top 10 movies in the United States for today, September 15. It ranks below Mayday, Troy, Zero Dark Thirty, The Dink, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, and above F1, Superbad, War of the Worlds, and The Gorge.
I, Robot is also streaming for free on Tubi.
While not an Apple TV original, I, Robot is one of the streamer's latest sci-fi hits, along with Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds (2005) at No. 9. Some of the streamer's original sci-fi hits include the series For All Mankind (2019), Severance (2022), Silo (2023), Dark Matter (2024), Pluribus (2025), Murderbot (2025), and Star City (2026).
The Film Mixes The Heights Of Isaac Asimov & Steven Spielberg
I, Robot may not faithfully adapt Isaac Asimov's stories, but it borrows their most enduring idea – what happens when humanity builds machines governed by rules? The film takes Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, several characters, the title of his 1950 collection, and reshapes them into a sleek, action-packed mystery. It is Asimov filtered through modern Hollywood spectacle while remaining recognizably thoughtful.
That is where Steven Spielberg's influence feels especially relevant. Like Spielberg's best sci-fi, I, Robot balances spectacular set pieces with questions about technology, humanity, and the future. The result barely resembles Asimov's original stories, yet still succeeds as an entertaining summer blockbuster that makes audiences think, even briefly. In that sense, I, Robot reaches toward both masters beneath its spectacle.
- Release Date
- July 15, 2004
- Runtime
- 115 Minutes
- Director
- Alex Proyas
- Writers
- Akiva Goldsman, Jeff Vintar
- Producers
- Anthony Romano, James Lassiter, John Davis, Laurence Mark, Michel Shane, Topher Dow, Will Smith, Wyck Godfrey
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.