Steve Jobs comes up short at the Oscars

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Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs.
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Photo: Universal Pictures

Bringing its award season to a shuddering halt, Aaron Sorkin and Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs biopic had a disappointing night Sunday at the Oscars — with its two nominations failing to turn into wins.

Michael Fassbender had been nominated for Best Actor for his role as Apple’s mercurial late founder, and seemed an early favorite, with trade magazine Variety‘s early review suggesting that, “With ‘Steve Jobs,’ Fassbender [Has Shot] to the Top of This Year’s Best Actor Oscar Race.”

He lost to Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant.

However, while most people rightly expected Leo to win Best Actor, fellow Steve Jobs actor Kate Winslet’s loss to Alicia Vikander for The Danish Girl was somewhat more of a surprise.

Kate Winslet was a seeming shoe-in for the Best Supporting Actress gong for playing Mac PR guru Johanna Hoffman. Winslet had already won a BAFTA and Golden Globe for the role, which was essentially the movie’s second lead role.

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin also failed to win an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, and was not even nominated for the award. Steve Jobs similarly wasn’t nominated for Best Actor or Best Director, alongside the numerous technical awards available.

I’ve written at length about Steve Jobs, so won’t add more here — although you can check out my in-depth thoughts on why the movie failed to live up to its early Oscar buzz. You can also read the full list of Oscar winners here.

By comparison, Aaron Sorkin’s excellent 2010 Facebook movie, The Social Network (which Universal no doubt hoped to recapture the success of with this film) received eight Oscar nominations that year — including Best Picture, Best Director for David Fincher, and Best Actor for Mark Zuckerberg-actor Jesse Eisenberg, and ended up winning for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Film Editing.

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