Aaron Sorkin, the Oscar-winning writer of Facebook movie The Social Network, has revealed that he is planning a highly unorthodox structure for the much-anticipated new film about the life of Apple founder Steve Jobs. Sorkin told the Daily Beast he envisaged a biopic comprised of just three scenes, shot in real time. Each snapshot of Jobs's life would be picked from just before a vital product launch, forming a vision of the technology guru seen through the prism of his major successes.
"This entire movie is going to be three scenes and three scenes only. That all take place in real time," Sorkin said. "There will be no time cuts and each will take place before a product launch. Backstage before a product launch. The first one being the Mac, the second one being NeXT, after he had left Apple. And the third one being the iPod."
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The writer added: "I don't know if you remember the ad campaign [Jobs] did. It was the 'Think Different' campaign. 'Here's to the crazy ones.' That's how it began. If I can end the movie with that text and that voiceover ... If I can earn that ending, then I will have written the movie that I wanted to write."
Sorkin had already revealed, after signing on to write the Jobs film in May, that he planned to dispense with the traditional cradle-to-grave structure for a biopic in favour of painting a "heroic" picture of the late Apple co-founder. "It's a little like writing about the Beatles," he added. "There are so many people out there that know him and revere him."
Sorkin's take is effectively the official Jobs biopic, since it adapts the bestselling official biography of the technology icon, Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography. Isaacson's book is based on more than 40 interviews with its subject conducted over two years, as well as interviews with more than 100 family members, friends, adversaries, competitors and colleagues. Jobs died on 5 October 2011, of cancer.
A rival indie biopic titled simply Jobs, with Ashton Kutcher cast in the lead is, however, likely to hit cinemas first. Joshua Michael Stern's film will reportedly chronicle the entrepreneur's journey from "wayward hippie" to Apple CEO. Production began in June and the film is set for release in 2013.
