Danny Boyle

The Sorkin/Boyle Steve Jobs movie has grossed $2.26M to date, reports Deadline, as it rolled out to a further 56 theaters over the weekend. The movie had earlier achieved the highest average earnings per theater of any movie this year on its opening weekend.

The limited rollout to a total of just 60 theaters meant it didn’t earn enough to make the top 10, headed by Goosebumps – which was on show at 3,500 locations.

While the movie has been criticized by some for the artistic liberties taken with the truth, with even Steve Wozniak and key system software designer Andy Hertzfeld saying that almost nothing shown really happened like that, scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin defended the movie at a London press conference … 
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Interviewed by Bloomberg, Steve Wozniak reiterated his comments about the difference between fact and fiction in the Steve Jobs movie, saying that almost nothing shown actually happened, but that it was about personalities, not facts.

It’s a great movie. If Steve Jobs had been making movies, this is the quality it would have had.

Asked about the accusation made by Tim Cook and other Apple execs that movies about Jobs were opportunistic and didn’t accurately portray the man, Woz said that the movie showed Jobs at an earlier time in his life … 
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Steve Jobs, the controversial Sorkin/Boyle not-quite biopic, achieved the highest opening weekend Per-Theater Average (PTA) of any movie this year, reports Deadline. The movie also gave director Danny Boyle the best ever weekend average of his career.

The feature grossed sizzling $520,942, averaging $130,236. By comparison, Boyle’s Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire (2008) grossed over $360K in 10 theaters its debut weekend, averaging $36K. The drama about the Apple founder, adapted by Aaron Sorkin, easily outpaced Sicario‘s $67K debut PTA.

It’s not an all-time record, though … 
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[Ed. Note: This is a guest post by Lontih Khatami who [disclosure] works at the same studio, Universal, that produced the film but did not work on the film. Spoiler: it’s better than iSteve]

Interested in seeing the new Steve Jobs movie that Universal is releasing this weekend in select markets (with wide expansion set for October 23)? Well, me, too. Only I’ve already seen it five times within the past dozen days. And I eagerly await my next few viewings.

You’re probably wondering how I’ve been able to see this inevitable Oscar contender so many times prior to its initial release. The more important thing to ponder, though, is “Why would anybody WANT to see it so many times in such a short timeframe?” The answer to that question, quite simply, is because the movie is masterfully made, and it works on so many different levels. Not unlike so many of the products the title character brought into this world…
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Director Danny Boyle with the cast of Steve Jobs

Despite the film being based on Walter Isaacson’s authorized Steve Jobs biography, the upcoming Aaron Sorkin-written biopic telling the story of the late Apple co-founder isn’t being totally welcomed by Tim Cook and company. As we’ve seen play out over the last few weeks, the Apple CEO called recent movies including Sorkin’s that depict Jobs in a not entirely positive light as “opportunistic”. A counter punch then apology from Sorkin followed.

The film’s director Danny Boyle isn’t softening his words, however, calling Apple a company with “tremendous, terrifying power” in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter promoting the film. Boyle believes artists should keep corporations like Apple in check, so to speak:
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Former Apple CEO John Sculley has told the WSJ that the Sorkin/Boyle movie Steve Jobs is “extraordinary entertainment” but depicts only one side of Jobs’ personality.

It’s extraordinary entertainment, [but] was really taking one aspect of Steve Jobs’s personality.

Part of his personality was he was a passionate perfectionist, but there were so many other parts […] The young Steve Jobs that I knew had a great sense of humor. He was on many occasions, when we were together, very warm. He cared a lot about the people he worked with and he was a good person. So, I think those aren’t the aspects that are focused on in this movie … 

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The WSJ reports that Steve Jobs’ widow Laurene Powell Jobs repeatedly tried to block production of the Sorkins/Boyle movie Steve Jobs.

Ms. Jobs repeatedly tried to kill the film, according to people familiar with the conversations. She lobbied, among others, Sony Pictures Entertainment, which developed the script but passed on the movie for financial reasons, and Universal Pictures, which is releasing the $33.5 million production on Friday … 

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Andy Hertzfeld (R) with the actor who plays him, Michael Stuhlbarg (L)

Andy Hertzfeld, one of the key designers of the original Macintosh system software, has told Re/code that the Sorkins/Boyle movie Steve Jobs “deviates from reality everywhere” but “exposes deeper truths” about the man.

It deviates from reality everywhere — almost nothing in it is like it really happened — but ultimately that doesn’t matter that much. The purpose of the film is to entertain, inspire and move the audience, not to portray reality. It is cavalier about the facts but aspires to explore and expose the deeper truths behind Steve’s unusual personality and behavior, and it often but not always succeeds at that.

Hertzfeld said that Sorkin had convinced him that an impressionistic approach was valid … 
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Aaron Sorkin, screenwriter of Steve Jobs, told Wired that he had no idea how he was going to turn the huge biography into a movie, and when he finally did come up with an idea for it, he didn’t think the studio would agree.

I didn’t know that much about Steve Jobs, and the idea of doing a biopic was daunting. I work very slowly, and the first couple of months are spent just pacing around, climbing the walls […]

[Finally,] I got this idea, and I wrote an email to Scott saying, “If I had no one to answer to, I would write this entire movie in three real-time scenes, and each one would take place backstage before a particular product launch” […]

Really, I was emailing Scott to get help: Take this thing that I really want to do and tell me what I’m allowed to do, because no studio is going to let me do this. Two or three minutes later, I got an email from Amy Pascal—Scott had forwarded my email to her—and she said, “I think this is a great idea.” I couldn’t believe it. They were going to let me do this thing. 

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Universal today has shared the second official trailer for its upcoming Steve Jobs film. The movie debuted last week at the Telluride Film Festival and received almost universal positive reviews. Universal’s film stars Michael Fassbender as Jobs and is directed by Danny Boyle, previously behind hits such as Slumdog Millionaire. 

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After Steve Wozniak gave a thumbs-up to the upcoming Sorkin/Boyle biopic simply entitled Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder expanded on his comments in a lengthy interview with the BBC’s tech editor Leo Kelion.

Wozniak said that while the film didn’t always portray events in the way they really happened, it did capture the essence of its subject.

But when you see it portrayed dramatically, not the way it really happened but in a way that is emotionally graphic, it really conveys what Steve Jobs was really like inside… and what it was like to be around him.

Wozniak doesn’t, however, pull any punches when talking about Jobs’ personality … 
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Steve Jobs, the Universal Pictures biopic written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Danny Boyle, gets its debut screening tomorrow at the Telluride Film Festival. This is followed by a screening at the New York Film Festival on Oct 3rd, before its national release on 9th October.

We first saw a trailer for the movie back in May, with a longer one shown in July and a modified version shown on TV last month. A leaked screenplay draft confirmed that the movie is set around three product launches: the original Macintosh, the NeXT Cube and the iMac … 
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Universal Studios has just released the first trailer for the upcoming Steve Jobs biopic. The trailer gives us our first on-screen look at star Michael Fassbender as the Apple co-founder, along with Seth Rogen as Steve Wozniak, Kate Winslet as Mac engineer Joanna Hoffman, and Jeff Daniels as John Sculley.

Photos from the set previously showed us Fassbender and Rogen in costume, but the images in the trailer appear to be from a different scene. The film, which was written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Danny Boyle, will hit theaters in October.

Earlier this year the movie’s script leaked, revealing key details about the plot. You can view the trailer below:

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With filming of the Aaron Sorkin-written Steve Jobs biopic based on Walter Isaacson’s official biography kicking off in recent days, Universal Pictures has shared an official release date for the film. According to CNBC, the film’s studio says the Jobs film will be released in theaters later this year on October 9th, 2015.
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Universal Pictures has announced that principal filming of the Steve Jobs biopic written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Danny Boyle is now finally underway. The announcement confirms that the movie, dropped by Sony back in November, will still follow the original three-act structure based around three keynote presentations.

Universal Pictures today announced that principal photography has commenced in San Francisco on Steve Jobs. Set backstage at three iconic product launches and ending in 1998 with the unveiling of the iMac, the film takes us behind the scenes of the digital revolution to paint an intimate portrait of the brilliant man at its epicenter.

Surprisingly, Universal says that the final product announcement will be the iMac, in 1998, rather than the launch of the iPhone as had been widely expected … 
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Image via <a href="http://www.cnet.com/news/lights-camera-apple-filming-starts-for-new-steve-jobs-biopic/" target="_blank">CNET</a>

The Sony- Universal-produced Steve Jobs biopic starring Michael Fassbender has finally started filming after what seemed like an endless array of cast and crew changes. CNET spotted production crews setting up at the Los Altos childhood home of Steve Jobs earlier today.

As was revealed last year, the movie, written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Danny Boyle, will likely feature only a handful of locations, including the former Jobs home garage. While Fassbender is set to play Jobs, several other cast members have been tapped to portray other prominent individuals in the executive’s life.

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Michael Fassbender will reportedly play Steve Jobs in the upcoming biopic

While we’ve already learned some interesting details about the upcoming Steve Jobs biopic from the recently leaked Sony Pictures files, it seems there’s still more to be gleaned from the company’s documents. As the Verge notes today, new emails have revealed the possible settings for the film, which include “two auditoriums, a restaurant, and a garage.”

Those locations were included in an email sent from screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who, along with director Danny Boyle, will be taking the film to Universal Pictures for production after working with Sony on it for several years.

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DiCaprio and Boyle on the set of the 2000 film “The Beach”

New information discovered in the Sony Pictures data dump indicates that the loss of Leonardo DiCaprio for the lead role in the studio’s Steve Jobs biopic may have contributed to the decision to give the movie to Universal Pictures. According to Fusion, the film’s revenue projections dropped by a whopping 25% after Leo dropped out.

Soon reports claimed that Christian Bale would be taking up the role, but that ended up falling through as well. Most recently, actor Michael Fassbender is said to be up for the titular spot, though the movie is now being produced by Universal.

Now the movie has lost another potential cast member…