His passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.
—In Memory of Steve Jobs
Much has been said recently that a biopic portraying deceased Apple cofounder and former CEO Steve Jobs is scheduled to start shooting in the coming May. The movie is said to be directed by Joshua Michael Stern, with Mark Hulme of Five Star Institute as executive producer. As to the reasons of making this movie, Hulme stated that he was greatly impressed by how the entire IT section was stirred up when Jobs announced his retirement from Apple, and he had never encountered such a reaction and was inspired to create a biopic on Steve. The movie will be out in the fourth quarter of this year, and its focus will be on the life of Jobs from 1971 to 2000.
To star Steve, a new rising actor from Hollywood, Ashton Kutcher, is believed to be the perfect figure. As the movie will mainly depicts the colorful and youthful age of Steve in his 20s to middle 40s, Ashton Kutcher has a very similar looking and temperament with Steve in young, and the most convincing factor is that Ashton Kutcher himself is a computer savvy and an Apple fan as well. Although skepticisms have risen that whether or not this young man has the acting skills to lead Jobs, the producer, Mark Hulme, is quoted as saying: “When Ashton read the script he was immediately attracted to the project. He is a Steve Jobs and Apple fan, and is technologically savvy, as well, so he recognized the historical importance of Steve Jobs and the potential of the project. He is very excited to have the role.” Even the other Apple cofounder, Stephen Wozniak, is pretty exciting on the knowledge of Ashton Kutcher’s role of his old pal Jobs. So, let’s believe that Ashton Kutcher, the techie, will give us a surprise.
The central figure goes absolutely to the IT God, the icon, Steve Jobs. How Ashton Kutcher will play the role and portray Jobs’ “reality distortion field” to the most remains to be seen: Steve’s struggling on the misery of being abandoned & adopted and never overcame this side effect throughout his life; Steve’s cruel, brutal, and ruthless to his employees; Steve’s relationship with John Sculley, the then youngest-ever president of Pepsi-Cola he lured and exactly the same man he clashed with and who ousted him from his Apple in 1985; Steve’s legendary experiences at NeXT and Pixar, how he motivated the animation team to roll out Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Finding Nemo, and Cars etc which totally revolutionized the CGI-animated movie industry and his on-off-on relation with Disney; Steve’s 1984 Macintosh release show which successfully made a dent in the universe; Steve’s anecdotes with American Presidents, for example, in order to talk into Tom Hanks to persuade the latter to dub for the “Think Different” ad, Jobs pushed President Clinton to a corner to ask the President to make him a call to Tom Hanks at the President’s Feast, and the President vetoed…Jobs demanded that President Clinton should tell the country about the truth of the Lewinsky Scandal when the latter called him at one midnight for help…Jobs directly spoke to President Obama at a dinner party that the President would have only one term if the latter does not show goodness to the native firms…All of those mentioned may be included in the coming movie, maybe not, but at least people have expectations.
Other characters like Stephen Wozniak, the partner cofounder of Apple with Jobs in his garage in Los Altos, who actually played the decisive role of the first generation of Apple computer, Jonathan Ive, the chief designer who later became a partner and confidant of Jobs, Tim Cook, the steady, calm, chief operating officer hired by Jobs in 1998 and replaced Jobs as Apple CEO in August 2011, Mike Markkula, the first big Apple investor and chairman, and also one of an earlier father figures to Jobs, Lee Clow, the advertising wizard who created Apple’s “1984” Macintosh ad and worked with Jobs for three decades, and Steve’s wife Laurene Powell, his first kid, the eldest daughter Lisa whom he abandoned and later admitted the paternal kinship and which is also the name Steve named for the pre-Macintosh computer, and his biological full sister Mona Simpson are also believed to be present in the movie.
For better, for worse, we will have to wait for the fourth quarter to come!
