Steve Jobs film to consist entirely of scenes before product unveilings

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
The award winning screenwriter scripting a movie on the life of Steve Jobs has revealed that the entire film will consist of three scenes that will take place before the unveiling of the original Mac, NeXT, and the iPod.

Aaron Sorkin revealed the details of his script in an onstage interview at Newsweek and The Daily Beast's Hero Summit. Sorkin told editor Tina Brown that his film will consist of three scenes each about a half-hour in length.

Those scenes will occur in real-time, suggesting they will show fictionalized accounts of Jobs backstage before the start of one of his iconic keynote presentations. Newsweek CEO Baba Shetty added that Sorkin said the three product launches featured in the movie would be the Mac, NeXT, and the iPod.

Sorkin also revealed that Jobs would call him from time to time to compliment the screenwriter on something the Apple co-founder had seen and enjoyed. Jobs even asked Sorkin to write a Pixar movie once, but the Oscar winner declined.

Sorkin

Aaaron Sorkin with Tina Brown at The Hero Summit, via Roger Wildermuth.


Sorkin also discussed his script writing process, and said he strives to show audiences what a character wants, rather than who a character is. As for Jobs, he said there would be "no point" in writing something about him if he wasn't a flawed person.

Sony Pictures Entertainment tapped Sorkin to script a movie on the life of Jobs in May after the studio optioned the rights to Walter Isaacson's biography. Sorkin won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on The Social Network, a film about Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of Facebook.

Sorkin revealed in May, as he was still in the beginning stages of the script, that he envisioned the movie as more of a painting than a photograph reflecting the life of Jobs. He also said he wanted to avoid the "cradle-to-grave" narrative that naturally comes from adapting a biography.

"I'm probably going to instead identify the point of friction that appeals to me and write about that," he said at the D10 conference. He also described Jobs as "an extremely complicated guy."

In addition to The Social Network, Sorkin's credits include A Few Good Men, The American President, The West Wing, Sports Night, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Charlie Wilson's War and Moneyball.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 41
    This is Onion TV, right?
  • Reply 2 of 41


    From the title, the movie will be about his life up to 1976, which isn't much of a movie. Or like five minute snippets of Steve backstage at Moscone, Yuerba Buena, etc.

  • Reply 3 of 41
    realisticrealistic Posts: 1,154member
    Sounds boring to me.
  • Reply 4 of 41
    "Sony Pictures Entertainment tapped Sorking to script a movie"

    Sorking?

    how did spell check let that through?
  • Reply 5 of 41


    Interesting move.  Should be more provocative than a regular bio pic.  Character studies (when done right) are fascinating.  


     


    If you want his entire life story, read the book.  

  • Reply 6 of 41

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Realistic View Post



    Sounds boring to me.


    I was expecting an action thriller a la Bond.

  • Reply 7 of 41
    conrail wrote: »
    Interesting move.  Should be more provocative than a regular bio pic.  Character studies (when done right) are fascinating.  

    If you want his entire life story, read the book.  

    People will complain now, that books don't do it for them, they rather watch film.

    Imagination is really dwindling..
  • Reply 8 of 41
    paxmanpaxman Posts: 4,729member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Realistic View Post



    Sounds boring to me.


    I hope you are kidding. 

  • Reply 9 of 41

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by paxman View Post


    I hope you are kidding. 



     


    Sounds awful to me also. Sorkin loads his scripts with motormouths. I'll avoid this one. Thanks for the heads up, Aaron.

  • Reply 10 of 41
    feynmanfeynman Posts: 1,087member


    This guy sounds like he has a bigger ego than Jobs. He wouldn't write a script for Pixar as requested by Jobs but he will write a film about Jobs. How respectful.

  • Reply 11 of 41


    or more likely, these three scenes will be there to hook the viewer by using an event with which many are familiar (if not the actual event, at least the way the event changed the tech landscape), and these scenes will act as an introduction to an entire set of scenes establishing how we got to where the scene takes place.


     


    much more interesting than steve pacing back & forth and yelling at people about what color the carpet is.

  • Reply 12 of 41
    rob55rob55 Posts: 1,291member


    I was hoping for a treatment more like what he did with The Social Network. I don't see how three (albeit significant) events will portray even half the scope of Walter Isaacson biography. When I heard Sorkin would be writing the screenplay of the Steve Jobs bio, I was psyched. Now, after hearing this, not so much. I'll still watch it though.

     

  • Reply 13 of 41
    rob55rob55 Posts: 1,291member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by spinman View Post


    or more likely, these three scenes will be there to hook the viewer by using an event with which many are familiar (if not the actual event, at least the way the event changed the tech landscape), and these scenes will act as an introduction to an entire set of scenes establishing how we got to where the scene takes place.



     


    That would be interesting enough, but that's not what it sounds like to me. Don't forget, these scenes are supposed to play out in real time. I would laugh my ass off if the Jobs project with Ashton Kutcher ends up being the better of the two.

  • Reply 14 of 41

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by spinman View Post


    or more likely, these three scenes will be there to hook the viewer by using an event with which many are familiar (if not the actual event, at least the way the event changed the tech landscape), and these scenes will act as an introduction to an entire set of scenes establishing how we got to where the scene takes place.


     


    much more interesting than steve pacing back & forth and yelling at people about what color the carpet is.



     


    If you know Sorkin's "walk and talk" style of writing, the description makes sense. He typically has people walking fast from A to B while rattling off prose at a breakneck pace.


     


    The whole concept sounds DOA, frankly.

  • Reply 15 of 41
    gazoobeegazoobee Posts: 3,754member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Rob55 View Post


    I was hoping for a treatment more like what he did with The Social Network. I don't see how three (albeit significant) events will portray even half the scope of Walter Isaacson biography. When I heard Sorkin would be writing the screenplay of the Steve Jobs bio, I was psyched. Now, after hearing this, not so much. I'll still watch it though.

     



     


    The Social Network was an awful, boring movie IMO.  It used a very standard bio-pic format and didn't venture once into any scenes that actually required "acting" per se.  It could have been a movie of the week on NBC.  


     


    I think the idea of centring the movie around three similar, but pivotal scenes years apart in the man's life is a great idea and more imaginative than I would have expected from a hack like Sorkin.  The idea of doing these three scenes as the entire movie however, and filming them in real time seems unnecessarily restrictive.   I don't see it working at all if literally the *only* scenes are those.  It will probably be interesting and fun to watch, but it won't exactly tell much of a story or have any real point of view on Steve himself, which seems like a cop-out to me.  

  • Reply 16 of 41
    kr00kr00 Posts: 99member
    There goes the timeline. DOA indeed. Didn't they notice the social network won an Oscar? Idiots. The minute they casted Kutcher I knew it was crap. Noah Wyle would have guven it the serious edge it required, not this jokester who has never acted in a dramatic roll. Straight to video.
  • Reply 17 of 41


    Originally Posted by Kr00 View Post

    There goes the timeline. DOA indeed. Didn't they notice the social network won an Oscar? Idiots. The minute they casted Kutcher I knew it was crap. Noah Wyle would have guven it the serious edge it required, not this jokester who has never acted in a dramatic roll. Straight to video.


     


    Isn't this a different movie? TMZ is doing their trash with Kutcher, and Sorkin's movie is separate.

  • Reply 18 of 41
    rainrain Posts: 538member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Gazoobee View Post


     


    The Social Network was an awful, boring movie IMO.  It used a very standard bio-pic format and didn't venture once into any scenes that actually required "acting" per se.  It could have been a movie of the week on NBC.  


     


    I think the idea of centring the movie around three similar, but pivotal scenes years apart in the man's life is a great idea and more imaginative than I would have expected from a hack like Sorkin.  The idea of doing these three scenes as the entire movie however, and filming them in real time seems unnecessarily restrictive.   I don't see it working at all if literally the *only* scenes are those.  It will probably be interesting and fun to watch, but it won't exactly tell much of a story or have any real point of view on Steve himself, which seems like a cop-out to me.  





    Agreed.

  • Reply 19 of 41
    gazoobeegazoobee Posts: 3,754member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post


     


    If you know Sorkin's "walk and talk" style of writing, the description makes sense. He typically has people walking fast from A to B while rattling off prose at a breakneck pace.  ...



     


    This is otherwise known as "bad writing."  


     


    It's okay for a crap TV show like CSI or Homeland because it's main purpose is to prod the plot along.  It's faster and easier to have the characters basically narrate what the author wants the audience to know than it is to have it become apparent through the complexities of the character interactions.  It's lazy writing at best. It's similar to having "voice over" explanations in a movie which is also a definite no-no for any real writer.  

  • Reply 20 of 41
    rob55rob55 Posts: 1,291member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Gazoobee View Post


     

    ...The idea of doing these three scenes as the entire movie however, and filming them in real time seems unnecessarily restrictive.   I don't see it working at all if literally the *only* scenes are those.  It will probably be interesting and fun to watch, but it won't exactly tell much of a story or have any real point of view on Steve himself, which seems like a cop-out to me.  


     


    And therein lies my problem with it. I totally agree.

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