The Steve Jobs biopic, jOBS, is due for release in September, and it’s already come with its share of controversy. The reviews have been middling to fair, and there’s been recent speculation that Steve “the Woz” Wozniak may have gotten short shrift in the movie.
The Woz wasn’t happy with the script for the film he read, and he also spoke further about the movie, as well as his memories of Steve, for Vulture. When Vulture tells Wozniak he actually comes off well, “the moral compass who stays true to his engineering roots as Jobs falls deeper into the hole of corporate megalomania,” Woz replies, “That is actually true.”
The movie has a moment where Jobs doesn’t give Apple stock to a group of his friends he’s known since high school, and Wozniak came up with the “Woz Plan,” where millions of dollars in stocks were given to several people who Jobs passed over. (It’s not clear if that’s in the film or not.)
The Woz also expressed concern at how Jobs will ultimately come off in the film, even though Apple pulled “some evil, evil things.” Still, the Woz had a good relationship with Jobs, who had “always shown me the most respect. He always treated me with respect, because I did give a good machine.”
Wozniak told Vulture he spoke to Jobs several times before he passed away, and he often went back to the good old days: “Do you remember when we started? Did you ever think we’d get this far?”
Ultimately, Wozniak said he wanted to be known for being a great engineer, and Jobs “wanted to be a big, successful businessman and all that. I wasn’t attached to just making my money grow into more money and reading the financial papers. That stress. Money isn’t a factor in my life.” Whether the movie will show all the complex sides of Wozniak’s relationship with Jobs, who was a very complicated figure to say the least, still remains to be seen.
