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Steve Jobs movie flops at the Oscars as well as at the box office

This photo provided by Universal Pictures shows, Michael Stuhlbarg, from left, as Andy Hertzfeld, Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs, and Kate Winslet as Joanna Hoffman, in a scene from the film, "Jobs." (Francois Duhamel/Universal Pictures via AP) ORG XMIT: CAET760

Hopes that an Oscar win or two might revive interest in the Sorkin/Boyle movie Steve Jobs were dashed last night when neither of the nominees won. Michael Fassbender had been nominated for lead actor in the title role, but lost out to Leonardo DiCaprio for The Revenant. Ironically, DiCaprio was originally on board for the role later taken by Fassbender …


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Steve Jobs movie cast among Oscar nominees for upcoming 88th Academy Awards

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Aaron Sorkin’s mixed reviewed Steve Jobs movie already won a Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay and was nominated for even more. Now the film is showing up on the 2016 Oscar nominees list with the Steve Jobs biopic up for two Oscars at the upcoming 88th Academy Awards.


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Aaron Sorkin and Kate Winslet pick up Golden Globes for Steve Jobs; Michael Fassbender misses out

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The movie Steve Jobs last night won two of the four Golden Globes awards for which it was nominated. Aaron Sorkin picked up the award for Best Screenplay, and Kate Winslet won Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role. However, Michael Fassbender lost out to Leonardo DiCaprio in Best Performance by an Actor. Daniel Pemberton, who wrote the score for the movie, was also beaten by Ennio Morricone for The Hateful Eight.

Fassbender being beaten to the best actor award by DiCaprio had a certain degree of irony: DiCaprio had previously been offered and turned down the title role in Steve Jobs.

Despite claiming to be lost for words, Sorkin managed a wry acknowledgement of the fact that the movie bombed at the box office …


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Steve Jobs movie may pick up more consolation prizes after bombing at the box office

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The Sorkin/Boyle movie Steve Jobs may have bombed at the box office once the opening weekend was over, but it at least looks like it may pick up the consolation prize of some awards.

The Daily Mail notes that the movie has been nominated for three BAFTA awards following four Golden Globe nominations last month. Michael Fassbender, who plays the title role, has already won the International Star prize at the Palm Springs International Film Festival.

The BAFTA nominations are for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor (Michael Fassbender) and Best Supporting Actress (Kate Winslet). The earlier Golden Globe nominations were for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture (Michael Fassbender), Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting role (Kate Winslet) and Best Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin).

Less enthusiastic were Apple execs like Tim Cook and Jony Ive, and  Silicon Valley insiders like Walt Mossberg. Many of those close to Steve said that the movie bore little relation to real events, among them Steve Wozniak and John Sculley,

‘Steve Jobs’ film set to get digital, DVD, & Blu-ray release February 2

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Universal Pictures has announced it’s set to give ‘Steve Jobs’, directed by Danny Boyle and starring Michael Fassbender, a release on digital services, Blu-ray, and DVD February 2.

Blu-ray and DVD bonuses include “Inside Jobs: The Making of Steve Jobs,” a documentary detailing the making of the film, as well as feature commentary by Danny Boyle, Aaron Sorkin, and editor Elliot Graham.

The film originally opened to mixed reviews from critics and was, according to reports, generally disliked by those close to Jobs. It eventually bombed nationwide following what were reportedly highest per-theatre earnings of the year on its limited opening weekend. Still, the film may earn its creators a Golden Globe award or two next month.

We’d expect the digital release to hit iTunes and other online video services, but for now Universal is only confirming there will be a “Digital HD UltraViolet” release alongside the Blu-ray and DVD on February 2.

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Kate Winslet, Michael Fassbender among Golden Globe nominees for roles in Steve Jobs movie

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Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs biopic ultimately may not have performed so hot in theaters with reports saying the film likely lost money, but Michael Fassbender who portrayed the title character in the movie is being recognized for his performance. Earlier today the Golden Globe Award nominees were announced with Kate Winslet, Michael Fassbender, and Aaron Sorkin among the list of nominees credited for their roles in the Steve Jobs movie.


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Mossberg says movie doesn’t show the Steve Jobs he knew [video], as leaked emails take us behind the scenes

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Writing in his column in The Verge, Walt Mossberg – who says he spent “scores of hours” in conversation with Steve Jobs across 14 years – says that the man depicted in the Sorkin/Boyle movie is not the Steve Jobs he knew.

Steve Jobs wasn’t perfect. He was difficult. He was unnecessarily rude and brusque at times. He lied. But he also mellowed and grew as a person, and that mellowing coincided with the best part of his career. Mr. Sorkin opts to hide all of that from his audience. The best of the real Steve Jobs begins to unfold just as Steve Jobs ends.

A lengthy piece in Hollywood Reporter earlier this month – leaning heavily on emails leaked from the Sony hack – provides a lot of insight into what was going on behind the scenes in the run up to the making of the movie. This included the fact that Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony Pictures, knew from the start that the project was going to be challenging … 
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Steve Jobs movie: grosses $2.26M to date, Sorkin says “conscience is clear” over artistic liberties

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The Sorkin/Boyle Steve Jobs movie has grossed $2.26M to date, reports Deadline, as it rolled out to a further 56 theaters over the weekend. The movie had earlier achieved the highest average earnings per theater of any movie this year on its opening weekend.

The limited rollout to a total of just 60 theaters meant it didn’t earn enough to make the top 10, headed by Goosebumps – which was on show at 3,500 locations.

While the movie has been criticized by some for the artistic liberties taken with the truth, with even Steve Wozniak and key system software designer Andy Hertzfeld saying that almost nothing shown really happened like that, scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin defended the movie at a London press conference … 
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Steve Jobs movie opens with highest per-theater earnings of any movie this year, best ever for Boyle

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Steve Jobs, the controversial Sorkin/Boyle not-quite biopic, achieved the highest opening weekend Per-Theater Average (PTA) of any movie this year, reports Deadline. The movie also gave director Danny Boyle the best ever weekend average of his career.

The feature grossed sizzling $520,942, averaging $130,236. By comparison, Boyle’s Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire (2008) grossed over $360K in 10 theaters its debut weekend, averaging $36K. The drama about the Apple founder, adapted by Aaron Sorkin, easily outpaced Sicario‘s $67K debut PTA.

It’s not an all-time record, though … 
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Op-Ed: I watched the Steve Jobs movie 5 times and here’s why you’ll want to too

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[Ed. Note: This is a guest post by Lontih Khatami who [disclosure] works at the same studio, Universal, that produced the film but did not work on the film. Spoiler: it’s better than iSteve]

Interested in seeing the new Steve Jobs movie that Universal is releasing this weekend in select markets (with wide expansion set for October 23)? Well, me, too. Only I’ve already seen it five times within the past dozen days. And I eagerly await my next few viewings.

You’re probably wondering how I’ve been able to see this inevitable Oscar contender so many times prior to its initial release. The more important thing to ponder, though, is “Why would anybody WANT to see it so many times in such a short timeframe?” The answer to that question, quite simply, is because the movie is masterfully made, and it works on so many different levels. Not unlike so many of the products the title character brought into this world…
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Universal Pictures releases powerful new ‘Steve Jobs’ clip featuring Fassbender and Rogen on eve of movie’s premiere

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With Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs biopic set to hit theaters tomorrow, Universal Pictures has released what will likely be the final clip before the movie’s premiere. In the two-minute scene, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (played by Seth Rogen) questions Michael Fassbender’s Steve Jobs about his role in the computer industry.

Woz points out that Jobs has no engineering skill or experience and that most of his greatest accomplishments were built on the work of others, including Woz himself—yet Jobs seems to get most of the credit. Jobs goes on the defensive, positioning himself as the “conductor” of an engineering orchestra.

You can see the full scene below.


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Laurene Powell Jobs tried to block the Steve Jobs movie, saying it painted him as inhumane [Updated]

Steve Jobs and Laurene Powell at the The Museum of Modern Art in New York, New York (Photo by Brian Ach/WireImage)

The WSJ reports that Steve Jobs’ widow Laurene Powell Jobs repeatedly tried to block production of the Sorkins/Boyle movie Steve Jobs.

Ms. Jobs repeatedly tried to kill the film, according to people familiar with the conversations. She lobbied, among others, Sony Pictures Entertainment, which developed the script but passed on the movie for financial reasons, and Universal Pictures, which is releasing the $33.5 million production on Friday … 


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Sorkin: Three-act structure for Steve Jobs movie took two months of pacing, three minutes to be approved

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Aaron Sorkin, screenwriter of Steve Jobs, told Wired that he had no idea how he was going to turn the huge biography into a movie, and when he finally did come up with an idea for it, he didn’t think the studio would agree.

I didn’t know that much about Steve Jobs, and the idea of doing a biopic was daunting. I work very slowly, and the first couple of months are spent just pacing around, climbing the walls […]

[Finally,] I got this idea, and I wrote an email to Scott saying, “If I had no one to answer to, I would write this entire movie in three real-time scenes, and each one would take place backstage before a particular product launch” […]

Really, I was emailing Scott to get help: Take this thing that I really want to do and tell me what I’m allowed to do, because no studio is going to let me do this. Two or three minutes later, I got an email from Amy Pascal—Scott had forwarded my email to her—and she said, “I think this is a great idea.” I couldn’t believe it. They were going to let me do this thing. 


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Steve Jobs movies: Man in the Machine documentary opens today, Sorkin/Boyle biopic debuts tomorrow

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Steve Jobs, the Universal Pictures biopic written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Danny Boyle, gets its debut screening tomorrow at the Telluride Film Festival. This is followed by a screening at the New York Film Festival on Oct 3rd, before its national release on 9th October.

We first saw a trailer for the movie back in May, with a longer one shown in July and a modified version shown on TV last month. A leaked screenplay draft confirmed that the movie is set around three product launchesthe original Macintosh, the NeXT Cube and the iMac … 
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Kate Winslet talks new Steve Jobs movie as first official film poster is revealed

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Following the first trailers for the upcoming Aaron Sorkin-penned Steve Jobs film landing online and TV in recent weeks, Universal has now revealed the first official poster for the movie (pictured above) as star Kate Winslet shares some thoughts on her role and the film in a new interview.

In a recent interview in New York Magazine, Kate Winslet, who stars in the Danny Boyle directed film alongside Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs and supporting roles for Seth Rogen and Jeff Daniels, shares some insight into how she got the role, what to expect from the film and her experience on set.

On preparing for the role and meeting the real Joanna Hoffman:

I spent a great deal of time with Joanna, and she herself has a softness to her. She came to America as a young woman and achieved a great deal. One thing that was unique about her as a figure in Steve’s life was that she didn’t need anything from him. She just needed for him to be the best version of himself. And that’s what really set their relationship apart from any relationship with all his other colleagues…  She was an extraordinary, feisty Eastern European person who was pretty much the only person who could actually knock sense into Steve, and she was also kind of an emotional compass.

On what to expect from the film and Aaron Sorkin’s dialogue:

Sorkin makes it almost not about Steve Jobs at all. It’s about how that man has 100 percent dictated how we all live our lives today and how we function as people. The film is about all of us, and all of us today, not in ’84 or ’88 or ’98. I mean, look at us all — how we function. You look at a lot of toddlers today, they’ll pick up any screen of any kind, and they don’t push a button, they swipe. It’s horrifying but kind of extraordinary, and that is Steve Jobs…

The film is currently scheduled for release this October.

You can read more from the full interview online here and check out the recent TV trailer here.

New TV trailer gives another look at upcoming Aaron Sorkin Steve Jobs movie

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In the runup to the movie’s release on October 9th, Aaron Sorkin’s “Steve Jobs” film is currently airing a new trailer on TV. The trailer shows Michael Fassbender, who plays Jobs, pedantically setting up product launches interspersed with scenes of him criticizing others and others criticizing him. A big storyline of the film appears to be Steve Jobs relationship with his first daughter, Lisa. Watch the 60 second video below.


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New York Film Festival screening Sorkin’s ‘Steve Jobs’ biopic on October 3 ahead of its premier

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Attendees of the 53rd New York Film Festival in October will be treated to an early screening of Aaron Sorkin’s upcoming ‘Steve Jobs’ biopic. While the Hollywood version of Steve Jobs biography is set to debut in theaters on October 9th, the NYFF announced today that it will screen the film to attendees on October 3rd:

We are pleased to announce that Steve Jobs, written by Academy Award winner Aaron Sorkin (The Social NetworkCharlie Wilson’s War) and directed by Academy Award winner Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire127 Hours), has been selected as the Centerpiece for the 53rd New York Film Festival. The film will screen for audiences on October 3.

The film, which is based on the authorized Walter Isaacson-written biography of the late Apple co-founder, stars Michael Fassbender in the lead role with Seth Rogen portraying Steve Wozniak. Universal has shared both a teaser video and an in-depth trailer for the movie ahead of its early October premier.

Universal Studios releases first trailer for Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs biopic

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Universal Studios has just released the first trailer for the upcoming Steve Jobs biopic. The trailer gives us our first on-screen look at star Michael Fassbender as the Apple co-founder, along with Seth Rogen as Steve Wozniak, Kate Winslet as Mac engineer Joanna Hoffman, and Jeff Daniels as John Sculley.

Photos from the set previously showed us Fassbender and Rogen in costume, but the images in the trailer appear to be from a different scene. The film, which was written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Danny Boyle, will hit theaters in October.

Earlier this year the movie’s script leaked, revealing key details about the plot. You can view the trailer below:


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Steve Jobs actor Michael Fassbender still uses a broken iPhone 4

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Michael Fassbender revealed today in an interview with Variety that he’s not quite up-to-date on the latest Apple hardware, even though he’s playing the company’s co-founder in an upcoming biopic. According to the actor, he still uses an iPhone 4 because that model was his favorite design, and even though the phone is broken, he plans to keep using it until it no longer works.

Fassbender also indicated that he thinks the upcoming film is a “favorable adaptaion” of Jobs’ story.  The script for the movie recently leaked and seemed to back up that assessment.

From the interview:

You recently finished playing Steve Jobs. Is it dark?
Like “The Conjuring”?

No, is it a favorable adaptation?
I think it is.

You look skinnier now.
I didn’t lose weight. But I certainly didn’t go to the gym.

Did it cause you to look at Mac products differently?
It did. I’m still on my iPhone 4.

You don’t have the iPhone 6?
No, the 4 is my favorite design. I also use something until it’s no longer useable.

Your phone looks broken.
But it still works. The cover actually broke off my broken phone.

The Steve Jobs biopic will be released this October and will star Fassbender along with Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Perla Haney-Jardine. It will be directed by Danny Boyle, with a script written by Aaron Sorkin.

Spoiler alert: We’ve read the screenplay for Aaron Sorkin’s Steve Jobs biopic and it looks fantastic

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While we haven’t gotten many details about the Aaron Sorkin-penned screenplay based on Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography, we have previously learned that it will focus on three separate days in the life of the Apple co-founder, with each 30-minute act taking place just before a major product announcement. We also know that Michael Fassbender will star alongside Seth Rogen, Michael Stuhlbarg, Kate Winslet, Perla Haney-Jardine, and Jeff Daniels.

Today we got our hands on a copy of the screenplay (or at least a February 2014 draft of it) which reveals what many already may have already suspected based on previous reports: the three products Jobs will unveil during the biopic are the original Macintosh, the NeXT Cube, and the iMac.

The film opens with… (Read more)

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Photos from the set of upcoming biopic provide latest look at Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs

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Some new photos posted to Instagram from the set of the upcoming Steve Jobs biopic have given us our second look at star Michael Fassbender in the lead role as the Apple co-founder (via MacRumors). One of the photos, seen above from Instagram user “raqu3l” shows Fassbender as Jobs filming on a street outside the San Francisco Opera House.

The second photo (seen below, via Instagram user “seannung”), features a prop poster from the same location. On the poster, Fassbender poses with the NeXT Computer. That imagery, paired with a NeXT slogan, logo, and a quote from Steve Jobs, indicates that production crews are filming scenes surrounding the unveiling of the first NeXT product. That machine was revealed at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall across the street from the Opera  House.


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Sorkin’s long-awaited Steve Jobs biopic due in theaters October 9th

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With filming of the Aaron Sorkin-written Steve Jobs biopic based on Walter Isaacson’s official biography kicking off in recent days, Universal Pictures has shared an official release date for the film. According to CNBC, the film’s studio says the Jobs film will be released in theaters later this year on October 9th, 2015.
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Principal filming finally underway for Sorkin/Boyle Steve Jobs biopic, sticking with ‘three keynote’ focus

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Universal Pictures has announced that principal filming of the Steve Jobs biopic written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Danny Boyle is now finally underway. The announcement confirms that the movie, dropped by Sony back in November, will still follow the original three-act structure based around three keynote presentations.

Universal Pictures today announced that principal photography has commenced in San Francisco on Steve Jobs. Set backstage at three iconic product launches and ending in 1998 with the unveiling of the iMac, the film takes us behind the scenes of the digital revolution to paint an intimate portrait of the brilliant man at its epicenter.

Surprisingly, Universal says that the final product announcement will be the iMac, in 1998, rather than the launch of the iPhone as had been widely expected … 
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Camera crews arrive at Steve Jobs’ childhood home as production on biopic finally begins

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Image via <a href="http://www.cnet.com/news/lights-camera-apple-filming-starts-for-new-steve-jobs-biopic/" target="_blank">CNET</a>

The Sony- Universal-produced Steve Jobs biopic starring Michael Fassbender has finally started filming after what seemed like an endless array of cast and crew changes. CNET spotted production crews setting up at the Los Altos childhood home of Steve Jobs earlier today.

As was revealed last year, the movie, written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Danny Boyle, will likely feature only a handful of locations, including the former Jobs home garage. While Fassbender is set to play Jobs, several other cast members have been tapped to portray other prominent individuals in the executive’s life.


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