As you may recall, when Steve Jobs passed away last year the rights to his life story were quickly snapped up by Sony, with the hopes that Aaron Sorkin would write the screenplay.
Then the story disappeared, and we haven’t heard much on the Jobs biopic since, as much as Sony would obviously love to fast track this and get it going.
So like they say in football, somebody else saw the breach, and ran through it quickly. At first some thought it was an April Fool’s joke, but apparently it’s indeed true that an indie version of Jobs’s life is going into production this summer, with Ashton Kutcher of Demi Moore, Twitter, Two and a Half Men, and Dude, Where’s My Car fame.
Response to this hit the web immediately, it was mostly negative, but he does have the public support of Steve “Woz” Wozniak.
As The Hollywood Reporter noted, the co-founder of Apple said: “The fear that many might have is that Ashton was selected because he’s ‘hot’ right now. But I feel that his selection was done in the most professional manner.
“And I’m glad that he’s onboard. I think he’ll put a lot into it and that he cares about this particular subject… It’s almost too bad that Steve Jobs is gone. His opinions and guidance, as to the story and film crew and cast would have been invaluable.”
Actually, it would be pretty hilarious if Jobs were still here, because I can only imagine him driving everyone nuts over every little detail. That could have also been another interesting step in the life of Steve, movie director!
But all kidding aside for a moment, it’s too bad that people couldn’t wait for the big studio Jobs flick, which obviously would come with a lot of hoopla and Oscar campaigning. Then again, maybe they’ll be two or more Jobs movies going head to head, like the two Snow White flicks coming this year, or if this one sucks, there will probably be another one around the corner in a couple of years considering every movie’s now being remade twice every decade…
Of course, in the meantime, there is always the old Pirates of Silicon Valley which depicts the early days of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. In Pirates, Anthony Michael Hall played Gates, and Noah Wyle from ER played Jobs. You can watch the trailer above.
