After abruptly pulling the George Nolfi-directed The Banker on the eve of its closing-night berth at AFI Fest last year and indefinitely postponing the December 6 release that was to mark Apple’s debut as a theatrical distributor, Apple has finally come forward and dated the period film for a March 6 theatrical release before it is placed on the Apple TV+ streaming service March 20.

The situation cropped up after allegations were made of sexual assault by Cynthia Garrett, who said her brother Bernard Garrett Jr molested both she and her sister when they were children.

The film tells the story of two black entrepreneurs, Bernard Garrett Sr (Anthony Mackie) and Joe Morris (Samuel L. Jackson), who after becoming millionaires through Los Angeles real estate dealings banded together to buy banks in Texas, a perilous pursuit in the Jim Crow South. Using a white frontman (Nicholas Hoult), they bought the banks partly to be able to make loans to blacks in Texas, who were shut out of the wealth-building system because of their race.

The movie tells an important story. Cynthia Garrett’s allegations had little to do with the story onscreen but were incredibly hurtful to she and her sister to see a movie about her father that had her brother involved as a co-producer (he removed his name when the controversy was bared). Garrett also complained that her mother was excluded from the film, in a final scene after Garrett and Morris finish serving time for bank fraud.

I’d heard that just as Apple was not forthcoming to the point of being evasive to Deadline in the past week, the corporation took the same track with the filmmakers, only gesturing that it had finished its own investigation and, as the filmmakers had laid out in detail to Deadline last year, there was no evidence of wrongdoing or that they knew anything about Garrett Jr’s alleged misdeeds, which he has steadfastly denied.

There was talk of releasing the film a week prior, on February 28, to make Black History Month, but that conflicted with another Mackie project, so it was instead moved forward a week.

Apple was in a no-win situation on the movie, and clearly the corporation feared tarnishing its global brand. But this goes down as an inauspicious debut for the launch of a feature film division that acquired The Banker in competitive bidding. It seems Apple reacted more from fear than anything else, and did not stand by its filmmakers. The facts behind the unfortunate controversy were fairly clear since Apple made the surprising decision to pull the movie, and it is also unclear how shunting it to a brief theatrical window in March will help anything. The alleged victim and her sister will continue to be upset, though an attempt to reach her before this announcement was so far unavailing. More to come on this one.

The filmmakers issued this statement December 2, just as the controversy had heated up:

“We set out to tell a story we were very passionate about, recounting the remarkable lives of Bernard Garrett Sr and Joe Morris, and their ground-breaking achievements combating racial inequality in the 1950s and 60s. Though we have no way of knowing what may have transpired between Mr. Garrett’s children in the 1970s, including the allegations of abuse we have recently been made aware of, our hearts go out to anyone who has suffered. The film itself is not based on the recollections of any of Bernard Garrett Sr’s children, but rather, on recorded interviews with Bernard Garrett Sr himself, conducted in 1995, supported by congressional transcripts, court rulings, and other media articles from the era. We stand by the film, and its positive message of empowerment.”

Signed By:

George Nolfi – Director, Producer, Writer

Anthony Mackie – Actor, Producer

Samuel L. Jackson – Actor, Executive Producer

Nicholas Hoult – Actor

Nia Long – Actor

Scott Daniel Johnson – Actor

Jessie T. Usher – Actor

Colm Meaney – Actor

Paul Ben-Victor – Actor

James DuMont – Actor

GregAlan Williams – Actor

Bill Kelly – Actor

Michael Harney – Actor

David Maldonado – Actor

Gralen Bryant Banks – Actor

Rhoda Griffis – Actor

Joel Viertel – Producer, Editor

Brad Feinstein – Producer

David Lewis Smith – Producer, Writer

Will Greenfield – Executive Producer, Unit Production Manager

Carlo Hart – Co-Producer

Stan Younger – Writer

Niceole Levy – Writer

Brad Caleb Kane – Writer

Charlotte Bruus Christensen – Director of Photography

John Collins – Production Designer

Aieisha Li – Costume Designer

H. Scott Salinas – Composer

Kim Coleman – Casting Director

Tonya Cryer – Hair Department Head

LaToya Henderson – Make-Up Department Head

Stephen Moore – 1st Assistant Director

Andi Crumbley – Art Director

Lynne Mitchell – Set Decorator

Mike Scherschel – Prop Master

Kayla Gueho – Location Manager

David Martin – Key Assistant Location Manager

Harrison Huffman – Production Supervisor

Huxley Rodriguez – Production Coordinator

Serena Simpson – Sound Mixer

Chris Birdsong – Key Grip

Jon Lewis – Gaffer

Karlyn Exantus – Script Supervisor

Meagan Lewis – Local Casting Director Atlanta

Mary Jasionowski – Production Accountant

Chuck Jean – Post-Production Supervisor

Gordon Williams – Music Supervisor

Michael Hatzer – Supervising Digital Colorist

David Christopher Smith – Sound Designer, Re-Recording Mixer

Marti Humphrey – Supervising Sound Editor, Re-Recording Mixer

Christian Wood – Visual Effects Supervisor

Chris LeDoux – Associate Visual Effects Supervisor

Cindy Rago – Visual Effects Producer