Could the story behind the upcoming Steve Jobs movie be even more exciting than the movie itself?
Having seen the movie dropped by its original backers, experienced damaging leaks as a result of the Sony hack, and topped off by a recent war of words between Tim Cook and writer Aaron Sorkin, now a new report claims that Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, tried to block the film’s release altogether.
According to reports, Laurene hasn’t actually watched the movie, but is basing her dislike on the fact it is an adaptation of the 2011 Walter Isaacson biography which she apparently hated.
“[Powell Jobs] refused to discuss anything in Aaron’s script that bothered her despite my repeated entreaties,” producer Scott Rudin told the Wall Street Journal. Jobs’ widow “continued to say how much she disliked the book, and that any movie based on the book could not possibly be accurate.”
Universal Pictures chairman Donna Langley is standing by the finished movie and says the studio is, “enormously proud of it.” Apparently, Laurene Powell Jobs was offered an advance screening of Steve Jobs so long as she didn’t publicly discuss it, but she turned it down.
The movie, it should be noted, has had rave reviews, with many suggesting Michael Fassbender’s portrayal of Steve is Oscar-worthy.
Personally for me, the bigger mystery is why everyone hates the Isaacson biography so much. While I totally get criticism on a technical level (this podcast review by John Siracusa is a great dissection of the book’s myriad errors), I never felt it was the damning appraisal of Jobs as a person that others apparently did.
Maybe it’s because I’ve read and heard so many people speak about Steve over the years, but the fact that he was a visionary entrepreneur with a dark side seems to have been common knowledge since the late 1980s, at least.
Then again, it can’t be easy to have a not-entirely-positive movie based on a deceased family member (and all the stories it will prompt) about to be launched into theaters around the world…
