Aaron Sorkin, Sony’s writer for their upcoming Steve Jobs biopic, spoke at Newsweek and The Daily Beast’s Hero Summit last week, saying, “this entire movie is going to be three scenes, and three scenes only, that all take place in real time.” The scenes will be 30 minutes long and are “all set right before three major product launches.” Accordingly, the film will take place over the course of three decades: before the launch of the original Mac computer in 1984; the NeXT Cube in 1990; and the paradigm-shifting iPod in 2001.
It’s a bold move for such a big studio movie, Sorkin’s version will certainly stand apart from the other independently-funded Steve Jobs biopic starring Jobs look-a-like Ashton Kutcher. That film, Jobs, costars another look-a-like: Book Of Mormon‘s Josh Gad as Apple’s co-founding father, Steve Wozniak. That $15 million film, financed by Five Star Institute’s Mark Hulme, is taking the cinematic approach. The Hollywood outsider’s film takes its stars to New Delhi and back again to explore Jobs’ years after dropping out of Reed College up to the year 2000. Curiously, neither film deals with the years leading up to Jobs’ death in 2011. Sorkin hopes to end the movie with a quote from Apple’s “Think Different” campaign, “here’s to the crazy ones.” He says “if I can earn that ending, then I’ll have written the movie that I want to write.”
While Sorkin had tremendous success with his treatment of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, he worries about his ability to tackle the treatment of the still relatively recently-deceased Jobs. He says writing about Jobs “is a little like writing about The Beatles… there are so many people out there that know him and revere him,” it’s like entering a “minefield of disappointment.”
Sorkin’s theatrical take on the material isn’t hard to imagine. Sorkin, of course, is no stranger to theater; his 1989 Broadway play, A Few Good Men, launched his career, and he famously tackled 9-11 on “The West Wing” with the very theatrical episode, “Isaac and Ishmael.”
Sorkin knew Steve Jobs personally and has been interviewing the Apple founder’s colleagues—including Steve Wozniak. Sorkin says “I’ve been able to talk to these people who revere him in spite of the fact that he made all of them cry at one point or another. But he made all of them better at what they were doing.”
Spring Breakers will finally get its day in the sun in the spring of 2013. Indie favorite Harmony Korine directs the bikini-clad romp with a cast that includes James Franco and rapper Gucci Mane. Spring Breakers, about “four college college coeds willing to do anything to have their dream vacation,” stars Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, and Heather Morris of “Glee.” Drive composer Cliff Martinez worked with Skrillex to compose the score.
The troubling/electrifying combination of Disney stars and the writer behind 1995’s NC-17 classic, Kids, is getting more and more interesting. Jordan Hoffman of Film.com calls the movie a “brilliant/putrid satire/pornography,” saying “it would be easy to dismiss Spring Breakers. Lord, I’d like to.” He adds, “there are moments, somewhere in the cannabis haze of day-glo bikini buttocks and cocaine-topped nipples where an abstract expressionism starts to seep [from] the screen.”
The Hollywood Reporter bottom-lines with, “one-time Disney girls go wild, along with a more than typically outré James Franco, in Harmony Korine’s stylish but shallow take on late-teen malaise run riot.” Sounds great, no? Apparently, Megan Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures thought so, too. The Master and Zero Dark Thirty producers purchased the US distribution rights to Spring Breakers back in September, in a deal brokered by CAA, and the rights have since been picked up by New York’s upstart distribution company, A2A. The film’s production team includes Hero and Muse productions, which developed and funded the project.
In addition to billboards featuring a corn-rowed Franco surrounded by nearly-nude Disney stars, Spring Breakers benefits from National Enquirer-worthy headlines about its racy content and behind-the-scenes dramz. Vanessa Hudgens recently told the Sun that the film’s threesome scene was “very nerve-racking,” telling her agents “I never want to do it ever again.” And after “Pretty Little Liars” star Ashley Benson reportedly began dating James Franco behind the scenes, RadarOnline ran a story saying Ashley dumped Selena’s BFF, Ryan Good, to be with James. A source tells Radar Online “Selena is pissed off that she went out of her way to vouch for Ashley, only to have her dump Ryan. She got the role and she got the man, but she lost a good friend.” This is big stuff, people. Look out for Spring Breakers in wide release next spring.
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