Can Brad Pitt’s ‘F1’ movie finally deliver Apple a big-screen hit?

When the team behind this week’s Brad Pitt movie “F1” first pitched their idea around Hollywood, nearly every major entertainment company wanted in and a bidding war quickly erupted. Then Apple bigfooted them all.

The tech giant agreed to spend nearly $250 million, more than any other studio thought the drama about an aging driver’s last shot at glory was worth, said people with knowledge of the matter. Pitt was paid more than the $20 million standard for A-list movie stars and will get a cut of the film’s revenue if it’s a hit.

“F1” is one of Apple’s biggest entertainment bets since it leapt into Hollywood in 2019 and embodies its unusually lavish and meticulous approach to the business, which has brought little commercial success. People who have worked at or with the company say Apple executives crave hits, but only want to produce content they believe reflects the high-end, aspirational qualities of the iPhone and MacBook. There’s little chance, in other words, that Apple would make a critically reviled blockbuster like “A Minecraft Movie.”

With sleek production values and strong reviews, “F1” is exactly the kind of movie Apple wants. It was made by “Top Gun: Maverick” director Joseph Kosinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, and Apple executives have privately said they hope it will be the land-based equivalent of the airborne blockbuster, which grossed $1.5 billion in 2022.

But prerelease surveys indicate “F1” is struggling to generate interest among audiences beyond older men. Its success or failure will be a referendum on Apple’s ability to meld carefully curated content with broad popular appeal after six years in which it hasn’t released a single box-office hit.

“F1” will be available on Apple TV+, the company’s streaming service, after its run on the big screen. Apple TV+ has an estimated 27.2 million subscribers in the U.S., according to Nielsen, below competitors that launched around the same time including Disney+ and HBO Max. Apple TV+ is available in more than 100 countries around the world.

It has earned a reputation for content that excites critics more than audiences, including the Leonardo DiCaprio-Robert De Niro movie “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Oscar Best Picture winner “CODA,” literary adaptation “Pachinko,” and the spy drama “Slow Horses.”

Its few mainstream successes include sports comedy “Ted Lasso,” sci-fi workplace drama “Severance” and straight-to-streaming film “The Gorge.”

“We’re into [entertainment] to tell great stories, and we want it to be a great business as well,” Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook recently told Variety.

An Apple TV+ spokeswoman declined to comment.

Analysts have questioned why Apple spends billions annually on a business so far afield from its core consumer-electronics operation, even if it’s barely a blip for a company worth some $3 trillion. “The strategic value it brings is sufficiently mysterious for people not to talk about it very much,” said analyst Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson.

Apple TV+ costs $10 a month. It is also part of the Apple One bundle that starts at $20 and includes music, games and iCloud storage. Apple One is critical to the company’s growing services business.

Moreover, exclusive films and TV shows attract people to the Apple TV app, where the company sells subscriptions to competing video services and takes a cut of the proceeds.

It also “serves as a hedge against content companies pulling back or away from Apple devices,” said Above Avalon analyst Neil Cybert.

In a sign it is seeking more revenue than its own ecosystem can generate, Apple TV+ last year became available through Amazon. According to the research firm Antenna, Apple had 1.5 million sign-ups through Amazon in the first three months.

One thing Apple hasn’t done is pull back on spending. Most of its TV shows and films feature expensive big-name talent, like Jon Hamm in “Your Friends and Neighbors” and Cate Blanchett in “Disclosure.”

For the new golf comedy “Stick” starring Owen Wilson, creator Jason Keller wanted a costly soundtrack including well-known tracks from The Who, Beastie Boys and Simon & Garfunkel. “I never really got any pushback” from Apple, he said.

Apple has frustrated talent it works with in other ways though, including how little data it shares on streaming views. Producers have resorted to paying outside analysts tens of thousands of dollars for insights on how their content performed on Apple TV+.

“I’ve had one conversation with somebody at Apple. They said, ‘We’re very happy with the initial numbers, we’ll talk to you in a couple of weeks,’” said Keller.

Unlike fellow Hollywood émigrés Amazon and Netflix, Apple hasn’t supplemented its productions with older TV shows and movies from other studios’ catalogs, because it doesn’t want any content on its service it hasn’t handpicked to match its brand.

As a result, Apple TV+ has only a few hundred titles in its library, and customers have a habit of signing up to watch a particular show or movie and then canceling. The percentage of subscribers who cancel in a given month is 6%, according to Antenna, compared with 3% for Disney+ and 2% for Netflix.

“We elected not to go out and procure a catalog. I know that’s a faster way into the business, but it didn’t feel like Apple at the end of the day,” Cook told Variety. “Apple should have something that we pour our passion into, and that’s exactly what we’re doing with the shows.”

Apple has put its full muscle behind “F1,” which was shot on special cameras for IMAX screens. It kicked off its recent Worldwide Developers Conference with a promotional video for the movie and is offering a discount on tickets bought with Apple Pay—the first time it has done that for a film. Cook has personally hyped it alongside Pitt and Formula One racer Lewis Hamilton, which the CEO typically does only for Apple’s most important launches. Hamilton is also a producer on the movie, and his league has marketed “F1” at its races.

But Apple hasn’t invested in the capacity to release and advertise its own movies, as Amazon did when it acquired MGM. Warner Bros. is distributing “F1” for Apple and gets a percentage of box-office revenue that increases with ticket sales, according to a person familiar with the arrangement.

That approach saves Apple on overhead costs, but puts it at the mercy of partners that may prioritize their own productions. Warner Bros. is releasing “Superman,” its most important movie of the year, two weeks after “F1.”

A Warner spokeswoman said it is giving “F1” a “robust global marketing campaign that befits a film of its size.”

Apple executives have discussed starting their own theatrical distribution unit, people familiar with the matter said.

Write to Ben Fritz at ben.fritz@wsj.com and Joe Flint at Joe.Flint@wsj.com