Why would you make a film about such an iconic person and treat it like a Lifetime movie of the week and put Ashton Kutcher at the head of the cast? This should have been an earth shattering biography.
Instead, as Deadline tells us so succinctly and beautifully:
Flopping in wide release (2,381 theaters) was Open Road Films’ Jobs, the much-publicized biopic about the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs starring Ashton Kutcher. It came in only #7 with a meager $6.7M despite a plethora of TV ad buys. Ashton just isn’t a movie star, period, and the ‘B-’ CinemaScore didn’t generate any helpful word of mouth for the pic directed by Joshua Michael Stern (Swing Vote) and scripted by first-time screenwriter Matt Whitely. Open Road acquired Jobs just before it premiered at Sundance in January from Five Star Feature Films which financed the $12M production. Rotten Tomatoes critics only gave it 24% positive reviews because of its superficial made-for-TV depiction of a complex creative and business icon. Still it’s surprising how many Apple devotees stayed away despite the marketing’s psychographic targeting to them. And digital stunts included the launch of the first-ever Instagram movie trailer and Kutcher ringing the bell at the NY Stock Exchange.
This just ticks us off. Tucker was a bio about a guy who may not have succeeded the way Jobs did but who was iconic in his own way. That was a good movie. It had Jeff Bridges in the lead.
Apple fanboys should be burning down the Internet of Kutcher. Josh Gad as Woz was a priceless piece of casting lest anyone thinks we are being too hard on Jobs.
Sheesh. Ashton Kutcher.
