Award-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, the man behind The Social Network (a.ka. “the Facebook movie”), is “strongly considering” an offer to adapt Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs into a biopic for the big screen, reports E! Online.
“Sony has asked me to write the movie and it’s something I’m strongly considering,” said Sorkin at a recent industry event in Santa Monica, California.
“Right now I’m just in the thinking-about-it stages,” he said. “It’s a really big movie and it’s going to be a great movie no matter who writes it. He was a great entrepreneur, he was a great artist, a great thinker. He’s probably inspired [my 11-year-old daughter] Roxy more than he’s inspired me … she plays with all his toys.”
Sony recently acquired the rights to Isaacson’s story of the life of Steve Jobs, who died at the age of 56 in early October after years of battling with pancreatic cancer.
It’s no surprise that the story of the revered and controversial co-founder of Apple has a Hollywood future; only six days after its release, Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography had sold more than 379,000 copies in the US alone.
Sorkin, too, seems an obvious fit. For one, he is well versed in the culture of Silicon Valley and the world of technology giants, having won an Oscar earlier this year for The Social Network, which tells the story of Mark Zuckerberg and the early days of Facebook. In addition, Sorkin was professionally acquainted with Jobs, having spoken on the phone with him numerous times. Sorkin was in the running to write a script for Pixar, Jobs’ other staggeringly successful business.
Despite its popularity, the Jobs biography has come under fire recently from a number of Apple insiders. Most notable is John Gruber, a technology journalist who is one of the most well-regarded authorities on all things Apple. Gruber believes that Isaacson was the “wrong guy” to write the official Jobs biography, which was derived from 40 interviews with Jobs, because Isaacson failed to unravel “the mystery of [Jobs’] life and his work,” the things that made him so profoundly innovative.
Perhaps Sorkin can add the missing pieces to the puzzle.
