Sony wants 'Social Network' scribe to pen Steve Jobs movie - Page 2

I can't see a film about any of it. Too much story that would have be compressed to be honest.

Now a mini series, sure. I could see as much as 12 hours being pulled from this vast tale. They could do it as a half season mega mini series over 12 weeks, perhaps airing from January to April. Heck they could probably get Apple to buy ad time for the latest iPad etc. Who knows, perhaps they could get Apple, Pixar and a handful of other companies to buy all the ad time to keep the number of ads low and avoid any 'conflicting' companies from getting time to hawk their wares. No Android phones, Dell computers or t-mobile service mentioned. They could perhaps do it as part biopic and part documentary with interviews with the real players helping to bridge the gaps.

If done right it would be a memorial to the man that few would argue should have waited another decade. I haven't been impressed with Sorkin's movies but his TV was tight. If he was doing this as a tv gig I could get behind it.

We can argue forever about the most significant events in his life. And we will need to wait a while to really be able to assess things but as it stand today we look at the significance of the Bondi product launch in terms of Apple's history. The thing that makes it huge is that it was the first product after Steve Jobs return and role as iCEO. We know where Apple was at that time and we know where it is now. It was a revolutionary product in terms of design. It looked amazing. It also ties in with The Think Different campaign and Steve's speech about core values.

I certainly am not saying the iPod or iPad are less significant as products, but in terms of Apple's and I would argue Steve's story, perhaps less so. The fact that he himself viewed the iPad as his greatest achievement is not important. It would be presumptuous to excpect anybody to be the best judge of their own achievements in a historical context.

Did you ever see All the President's Men?

Too soon.

I'm keenly aware that a chronological presentation of his life would not be dramatic enough and would make the movie too long. Sorkin's smart enough to find his narrative thread, so that means it will be a slice from Steve's life with lots of the biographical material omitted. The book Accidental Billionaires is not a biography of Mark Z, so the narrative was about the founding of facebook. Sorkin would have to find a similar narrative for a Steve Jobs movie. The story would be an important, selective slice from Steve Jobs' life, rather than a linear retelling of all of it. It would have to have a central conflict with the other characters that define Steve Jobs' through line. The question is: which conflict? The Apple vs. Microsoft conflict was the subject of Pirates of Silicon Valley, but Apple and Microsoft buried the hatchet years ago, so I don't think Sorkin will go there. But then what is Sorkin left with? Steve vs. his demons? Apple vs. Google? Steve vs. mortality?

Certainly not anything v Microsoft. I'd say Steve v himself, Steve v Apple and Steve v the world. I am not sure which slice of his life would best sum him up but as I have already said, I think the return to Apple is the most potent as a finale. I am sure there are many conflicts but being ousted and returning seem to me the most significant moments from a dramatic point of view.

The perfect actor to play Steve is Alan Ruck. He was born the same year so would need make up to play him as a young man. But Alan has a naturally youthful face so he could pull it off. Also a plus is that he is not famous himself. It's always a problem when a huge star plays a "real" person because it's a struggle for the audience to not "see" the celeb peeking though the character.

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3158214912/nm0001688

Sorkin plays a bit too fast and loose with the facts for my taste. His Social Network script was entertaining but off the mark. He made Mark Zuckerberg too predatory for my money, whereas I view him as more akin to an Asperger's case.

Or an Ass-burger?

Plus we know Bale can yell and swear at people

Steve Jobs: Chosen - A tale of Steve Jobs as a young boy, dealing w/being adopted, turning that into a positive, meeting Woz and founding Apple

Steve Jobs: The Sequel - The Apple II is released and Steve takes a visit to Xerox PARC. The Lisa and Mac follow and Jobs has several long arguments w/everyone's favorite sugar water peddler, leading to his ousting from Apple

Steve Jobs: The Next/Pixar years - In the wake of leaving Apple, he sells off lots of stock and founds NeXt as well as buys Pixar. Struggles ensue and the movie ends w/his first keynote as iCEO.

Steve Jobs IV: Return of the Jobs (or Reality Distortion Field, I can't decide) - Steve comes back to Apple and cuts the several hundred products down to a 2x2 grid. The iMac and iPod happen, Steve makes various people who work for him mad, not to mention people on Wall Street a ton of money. The first secret bits of his illness are covered as well.

Steve Jobs V: The iPhone Years - Steve introduces the iPhone and continues the crazy roll Apple has been experiencing. The leaves of absence begin and he shows up for more products. More triumphant returns and it all ends w/the media crush of his death.


Something like that?

Scary...

Michael Cera Totally Looks Like Young Bill Gates
http://cheezburger.com/View/2673762816

Young Steve Jobs Totally Looks Like Ashton Kutcher
http://cheezburger.com/View/1345309440

You write it by playing up the drama of each. Steve hits it big, then goes under, beaten by commodification. He returns to a world dominated by that demon in six incarnations: dominant mp3 players, phone makers, tablet nay-Sayers, etc. All on the scene, thriving. *Meanwhile he's going under with the company that was wounded (mortally?) by that same demon.

He plays, he thinks, he prophesies. Then he starts swimming against the flow. One comes at him (or is he coming at them?) Bam. One down. Another. Bam, laid low. This one has him, for sure. Boom, I don't think so. This one then for sure. Nope.

The last enemy is death. The Christ themes will be there only for the deep thinker, but they will be there.

Story-wise death will have to have been there all along. He beat it at the start to live and be adopted. He beat it in India. He beat it when it came as loneliness, failure, betrayal. He beat death over and over again, though each time he was left with wounds.

Death comes again, near the end of the movie. He fights, he thinks, he prophesies. Then he succumbs. Tragic. It will be heart-rending. In the midst of such life, such power -- death lays him low.

Yet, even from the gate of death he hurls out Siri and visions of new tv that materialize not long after.

The press herald him as ageless. Now a hanging question. What exactly did death accomplish?

Last scene: Isaacson talking to someone after Steve's death.
Them: So you wrote books on Edison and Einstein, huh?
Isaacson: Uh-huh.
Them: You think Steve's in that league (seemingly sincere, but there's an edge).
Isaacson: No way.
Them: (Smile. Now they confide That's what I thought, too.
Isaacson: He blows them away.
(They show surprise).
Those guys were nothing.
They changed things we could do -- light bulbs, bombs, so what?
Steve changed who we can be.
Them: Well he's dead like the rest of them (dismissively).
Isaacson: No. (Grabs his coat). Not dead like the rest of them.
Some people, some rare few, they never die. They live forever.
(Isaacson walks out. The camera pans to the person momentarily surprised, then dismissive. They get up, too, closing their awesome laptop and pulling out their touch phone to make a call. Awesome music rolls over (Beatles? U2? Coldplay?) The screen fades to black).

Boom.

In the last thread about this Sony movie about Steve Jobs some weeks ago, I wrote that Sorkin would be the worst possible choice, and now Sony goes and chooses him for the movie.

I'm going to read the Steve Jobs biography, but I have my doubts about this movie and I am already prepared for it sucking. Sorkin writes unrealistic dialogue, with people talking a million miles a minute. That's not how Steve Jobs spoke. I also thought that the social network was a pretty shitty movie. I am not looking forward to this movie.

Sony is not interested in making a realistic movie. They just want to release some garbage and make money.

Clearly Sony values your opinion about as much as most of the folks on this board do. Good to know *grin*

We'll see. If it ends up sucking bigtime, then rest assured, I will be be back to say "told ya so.".

Prediction: Sony will also hire Trent Reznor to do the music for the film. He will use sound generated by holding a magnet too close to a speaker accompanied by a piano. It will win an Academy Award for Best Original Score.

Like others have said, the story line you want to see was done a few years ago in the made for TV movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley." It was pretty decent.

You do realize that if it is actually going to be a movie released in theaters (not a made for TV movie) that it won't be out for at least two years.

-They have to get a script made once a writer signs on (3-6 months) and it also has to be approved by the studio after it has been written
-Casting has to be done, a director has to be signed, pre-production has to start (another 3-6 months)
-Filming has to be done (3 months)
-Post production (1-3 months on a movie of this type)
-A release date has to be finalized.

You are looking at two years minimum before this sees the light of day. And that is being optimistic on if everything falls into place. It is not like they are going to have it ready for Christmas 2011.

Once filming began on The Social Network it took a year before it was released. Expect the same time frame for this once filming starts.

OK, I never saw that movie. Was under the impression it was less than great.

I'd love to see the movie focussed on the iPhone. It was a long time coming, the Google battle, and then the cancer. I guess a few living people might end up objecting to less than favourable depiction...

But anyway, what do I know? If Sorkin does it I am sure it will be worth seeing.

Movies shmovies, let the people who loved Steve grieve... Loss is to be savoured and consolidated, the mans body is still warm and the circus is prancing about already...just let people feel his spirit a bit, lingering on a little till it deserts us...

Speak for yourself, please.

The soundtrack for The Social Network was great and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo soundtrack is also shaping up nicely. They could certainly do worse than choose Reznor & Atticus Ross.


Just basing that on several recent threads and reactions to his posts. Seemed accurate.

I disagree. I think the movie starts with the aftermath of his death, with a speech with somebody like President Clinton or Al Gore. This lets the folks who don't really know much about Jobs understand the significance of the death. Then the movie goes back to when Jobs first comes back to Apple.

There are many ways to do a movie, but most people already know the early story.

Nope, not accurate at all. The few people who object to what I write is Fandroids and other infiltrators on this site. That's a positive thing, not a negative thing.

They should also choose the same director that did the social network! That would be so great!

So basically the Steve Jobs movie would be written by the guy who wrote the social network, it would be directed by the same guy who directed the social network and the music can be done by the same team that did the social network! How original and daring!

Can't they just photoshop Steve Job's face into that movie which has already been made? That would be cheaper and quicker, and it could be ready for X-mas 2011.

Hopefully Sorkin will turn this movie down. He did turn down a Pixar movie when Steve asked him, so there is hope!

The Social Network came out relatively fast after Facebook was started. A couple of years, sure, but certainly not ten.

Thanks for the info about Zaillian. I was lazy and assumed that since the article mentioned Moneyball that Sorkin played a bigger role in it's creation. I haven't seen those other movies, but I'll take your word for it that they weren't "great."

Wow, Sony making an unimaginative choice - who woulda thunkit?

Maybe they should call it "The Social Network 2".

They could let Trey Parker & Matt Stone do a musical biopic. They'd probably end up with a parody of The Human Centipede, mixed with the worst Michael Bay action set pieces ever filmed. There would be car chases and an asteroid hurling towards silicon valley, for no reason other than Hollywood movies are absurd when they try to be serious. In 3D. Any way you slice it, Sony Pictures will f*ck this movie up.

Let Tarantino have at it. There would be characters smoking and doing drugs (Steve in his hippie days), followed by witty dialog, a revenge plot (Steve vs. Google) and a Mexican standoff in Act III.

I think his life is the stuff of opera.

Wasted on a Sorkin/Hollywood 'movie'.

All suboptimal choices. This is the guy: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001804/

Great actor. He even has the smile! Creepy.....

Actually, David Fincher really is a great director, so they could really do a lot worse than hiring him, but he's doing the trilogy of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, so he'll be tied up w/those for awhile

I would not brag about that... but you surely have your reasons to want the world to know you are ahemf... way too quick.

Then he should be played by Freddie Mercury, or Michael Jackson, or maybe Pavarotti... oh, wait. Looks like this century's headed into disaster.

Well, Steve just would have told you to cut the non essentials, I imagine

I'd rather be seeing it written as an opera by Philip Glass and staged by Robert Wilson, the duo that appropriately gave us "Einstein on the Beach". Perhaps they could call it "Jobs in the Garage".

Yes, and while it was fine film in many respects, I actually found it frustrating because so many details were left out and when Nixon resigns at the end of the film (which isn't actually shown, except with a title card), it almost seems anti-climactic.

"All The President's Men" is about two years in the lives of Woodward & Bernstein, not the story of their lives, so while the story is more complex in some ways and it has some aspects of a thriller, it's a much smaller story (but not less important) than the Steve Jobs life story.

In addition, while people were very aware of Woodware & Bernstein, they weren't very aware of their personas. This made it easier for Redford and Hoffman to play them. Because we've come to know Steve's persona (at least his public persona) so well, I wonder whether any actor can be believable in the role. (Maybe they should take the approach of that Dylan movie from a few years back and have many different actors portray Jobs.)

Also, while we all "know" how much Apple has changed our lives, I think that's hard to present in a film. Steve returning and cutting the Apple product line and coming out with the first iMacs in various colors is not something that's going to impress the movie audience. I think some would maintain that Steve's greatest accomplishment was not any one product release, but the development of the eco-system. And I think that's pretty hard to present in an interesting, non-tacky way as well. All films need a villain. Once Steve returns to Apple, who's the villain? Maybe the villain is mediocrity.

Charlie Sheen cannnot play Jobs. Have you seen Sheen with balding hair in Being John Makovich? He looked horrible! No way that bald pate can play Steve!