Fallout from a massive Sony Pictures hack continues to provide nuggets of information about an upcoming Steve Jobs biopic, the latest being emails from screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher, who was previously slated to direct the movie.
The emails paint Sorkin as the driving force behind the forthcoming film, which has seen its share of troubles including a transfer to Universal after Sony dropped out of the project in November.
One email from Sorkin to Sony Pictures chief Amy Pascal and producer Scott Rudin, as reported by The Verge, shows the Academy Award winner tried to salvage Fincher's spot on the team after negotiations with the director went south earlier this year.
"I do not know why he's like this (anymore than I know why Steve Jobs was like Steve Jobs) and I don't want this movie to be a bitter drink for the people at the top because you all have other things you can do and you'll just walk away," Sorkin said. "But we're looking at a home run pitch coming at us."
After Sony rebuffed Fincher's demands of $10 million in upfront payments and full control over marketing, he ultimately detached from the project in April.
While on board, however, Fincher lauded the script, saying, "Is great. It's a play, but a really quicksilver, cinematic one."
Sony's leak also provides a look inside the film's production, with Sorkin alluding to "two auditoriums, a restaurant and a garage." This lines up with previous reports claiming the movie will be broken up into three main scenes that take place before major product unveilings for the first Mac, NeXT and the original iPod. In an email from November, Sorkin mentions Symphony Hall in San Francisco, the site where Jobs unveiled NeXT.
Finally, Jobs' biographer Walter Isaacson sent an email in February lauding Sorkin's script.
"The script is totally awesome. I have a tear in my eye having just finished. I was deeply moved by the narrative arc and by the beautiful end. I loved the line, 'No way she's not my kid,'" Isaacson wrote, likely a reference to Jobs' daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs.
Sorkin previously said Brennan-Jobs plays a critical role in the movie's story arc, though an actress has yet to be cast for the part. Most recently, Natalie Portman was in talks for the part, but passed on the role this week.
Along with Portman, other big-name celebrities once tied to the picture include Christian Bale and Leonardo DiCaprio. Currently, Michael Fassbender is slated to play Jobs with co-star Seth Rogen as Steve Wozniak. Danny Boyle will direct when production gets underway in spring 2015.
11 Comments
And this story appears just minutes after appearing on The Verge... Ah, well. At least they got a link and image credit.
At least something interesting came out of the hack. Thanks, Norks.
Why doesn't Sony make a movie about themselves about how they got f.ed in every significant sector they had a stronghold on but had to compete with Steve's Apple then put it up on some porn tube under rough sex?
I'm curious about the four story arcs. I'm guessing "apple II", "Macintosh", "next", "iPod/iPhone". But I read somewhere the movie would focus on the later years, so I'm hoping "next", "iMac", "iPod", iPhone".
Amazes me that Apple centric websites are perfectly okay with posting stolen information on this in article after article. Have you no ethics?