Flashbacks will reveal Steve Jobs’ past in new movie

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Everything you wanted to know about the Steve Jobs movie (but were too afraid to ask.) Photo: Ben Stanfield/Flickr CC
Photo: Ben Stanfield/Flickr CC

Recently I wondered here on Cult of Mac how much of the forthcoming Steve Jobs biopic, penned by The Social Network‘s Aaron Sorkin, was going to take place in flashback.

For those who haven’t been keeping track, until now everything we’d heard suggested that the movie would be divided into three acts, with each one taking place backstage at a major Jobs product unveiling. The first part will take place before the original Macintosh launch, the second will deal with NeXT Computer, and the third will be Jobs’ introduction of the iMac (not the iPod, as previously suggested) upon Jobs’ return to Apple.

While that all sounds well and good, recently we’ve heard about scenes for the movie taking place at Jobs’ childhood home (modified to look as it would have in 1976) and a cafeteria at U.C. Berkeley, circa 1983 — neither one fitting with the entirely backstage narrative we’d been sold on.

Apparently these suspicions were correct, as a new report suggests that the movie will also contain flashbacks to several other points in Jobs’ life. Find out what they are after the jump:

  • The first flashback is said to take place in a garage (Jobs’ childhood home?), based around a conversation with Steve Wozniak. Slashfilm claims that this will be about whether or not to make the original Mac a closed system — although this makes little sense, given that the Mac project didn’t place in a garage, and that Wozniak (who focused his attention on the Apple II) had only peripheral involvement with it. What is more likely is that the scene focuses on the Apple I or, possibly, the Apple II — although this still makes little sense if the scene is about making it a “closed system.” Again, what is more probable is that the scene deals with the clash between Jobs and Wozniak over whether to sell computers or give away the blueprints for free, as Wozniak originally planned to do for the Apple I.
  • The second flashback reportedly shows Steve Jobs being kicked out of Apple in 1985 by then-CEO John Sculley.
  • Other flashbacks show Jobs’ home life, with his daughter Lisa raging from 5 to 19 throughout the script. This would possibly confirm the iMac product announcement, since Lisa was born in 1978 and would have been one week away from turning 20 when the iMac was introduced in 1998. Interestingly, by ending the film with the iMac, Sorkin apparently leaves out close to the last decade-and-a-half of Jobs’ life, including Apple’s ascendance to its current power position, and Jobs’ own battles with cancer and eventual death.

These flashbacks reportedly make up around 10 percent of the 177-page shooting script. Given that movies typically work out at one minute per script page, this would mean the finished movie could run a shade under three hours, with the flashbacks being around 15 or 16 minutes of this.

We can also confirm the most complete version of the Steve Jobs movie cast yet.

Jobs will be played by X-Men: Days of Future Past‘s Michael Fassbender, Seth Rogen will portray Steve Wozniak, Michael Stuhlbarg will be Andy Hertzfeld, Jeff Daniels will play Apple CEO John Sculley, Adam Shapiro will be Avie Tevanian, Kate Winslet will play former Mac marketing chief Joanna Hoffman, and Sarah Snook will be PR and marketing guru Andrea Cunningham.

Jobs’ daughter Lisa will be played by Makenzie Moss, Ripley Sobo, and Perla Haney-Jardine between the ages of 5 and 19. Lisa has previously been described as the movie’s “heroine.”

Source: Slashfilm

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