Well… that was quick. Just five days after Steve Jobs, co-founder and former CEO of Apple Inc. and creator of everything awesome in your life ever, passed away due to pancreatic cancer, Sony Pictures is already on the move for buying the rights to Jobs’ life story and will make a film about his life.
Looks like the film is set to be based upon the book, ingeniously titled Steve Jobs, written by Walter Isaacson, the former CNN chairman and Time Magazine managing editor. The book is set for release on October 24 as Sony is offering up $1 million to gain the feature film rights. The book, a hot upcomming commodity became even hotter with the news of Jobs’ death, moving its publication date up almost a month from the initial November release date.
So it comes as no surprise that the soon-to-be-published biography, Steve Jobs, has already sold its feature rights. It's likely to expect such a thing with such a high profile genius personality such as Steve Jobs. This film the second movie chronicling Jobs’ life, the first being The Pirates of Silicon Valley, which aired on TNT.
Although Sony has not commented on the book deal, it appears the Mark Gordon (Saving Private Ryan) will produce along with Management 360. Remember that this is the same studio that produced the Oscar-nominated The Social Network, so we know that they will do a good job in taking the audience inside the world of a computer genius and make it exciting and thrilling. Specially in telling the incredible life story of the genius that was Jobs.
The book was originally titled “iSteve: The Book of Jobs”, but Isaacson changed it to have a better chance of earning Jobs’ permission and cooperation. Isaacson, also a biographer of Ben Franklin and Henry Kissinger, was hand-chosen by Jobs out of a long list of authors to capture his legacy during his battle with cancer.
The 448-page biography took two years to complete and features over 40 interviews with the Apple co-founder himself. There are over 100 stories shared by friends and family, colleagues and competitors.
The story of Jobs’ life is very compelling. The man made a career out of following his curiosity and combining practicality with aesthetics, function with beauty. He undoubtedly revolutionized the computer, music and mobile industries.
One paragraph from the book's summary that could sum up the feature film reads:
At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.
In the right hands, Jobs’ story could make an excellent film. David Fincher made the Facebook story one of the most engrossing films of the past few years. On the other hand it is sad that the whole industry is thriving on exploiting Jobs’ death rather than celebrating his life.
What do you think about a Jobs biopic so soon after his death?
