Aaron Sorkin has apologised for mounting a scathing attack on the Apple chief executive Tim Cook after the pair clashed over the forthcoming Oscar-tipped biopic Steve Jobs.
Sorkin, who wrote the screenplay for Danny Boyle’s film about Cook’s predecessor as head of the technology firm, told E! News: “You know what, I think that Tim Cook and I probably both went a little too far. And I apologise to Tim Cook. I hope when he sees the movie, he enjoys it as much as I enjoy his products.”
The Social Network and West Wing screenwriter’s apology came after he was drawn into a war of words with Cook following the latter’s appearance on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert earlier this month. During his appearance, the Apple boss described recent attempts to immortalise Jobs on the big screen – he was referring to both Steve Jobs and the current Alex Gibney documentary Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine – as “opportunistic”, adding: “I hate that, it’s not a great part of our world.”
Sorkin hit back at a roundtable junket interview in London last week, suggesting that the film-makers took pay cuts to get Steve Jobs made, and blasting Apple’s own record.
“Nobody did this movie to get rich,” he said, in comments recorded by the Hollywood Reporter. “Secondly, Tim Cook should really see the movie before he decides what it is.
“Third, if you’ve got a factory full of children in China assembling phones for 17 cents an hour you’ve got a lot of nerve calling someone else opportunistic.”
Steve Jobs stars Michael Fassbender as the late tech guru, with Kate Winslet as original Mac team member Joanna Hoffman and Jeff Daniels as the former Apple chief executive John Sculley. Seth Rogen portrays Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple with Jobs.
The film, which presents an unsentimental view of its subject, has been praised by Wozniak. “My impression was I was shocked and amazed at how good it was in the sense of professional film-making,” he told the BBC. “In this case the film-makers have done an award-winning job. The acting was just so realistic. In some prior movies, I saw [the actors] simulating Steve Jobs, but they didn’t really make me feel like I was in his head understanding what was going on inside of him – his personality. This movie absolutely accomplishes that, and it’s due to great acting, which obviously comes from great directing.”
