The new $33.5 million film Steve Jobs opens Friday, but the Apple co-founder's widow reportedly tried her best to get the project scrapped, sources tell The Wall Street Journal.
Laurene Powell Jobs reportedly went to Sony Pictures Entertainment, which wound up passing on the movie after developing the script, and Universal Pictures, which is releasing the film, in an attempt to kill it. The film, directed by Danny Boyle with a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin, is based on the biography Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson; before Jobs died in 2011, he cooperated with Isaacson on the book. Michael Fassbender stars as Jobs, and the movie looks at the launch of the Macintosh computer in 1984, the NeXT computer in 1988, and the iMac in 1998, while focusing on Jobs' relationships with several people, including daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Those real-life people chosen to be characters in the movie were interviewed by Sorkin, who said the final product is different from the book; Wozniak told The Journal it's "about Jobs and his personality. I feel they did a great job."
Others who were close to Jobs say the movie doesn't accurately reflect who he was as a person. Bill Campbell, a friend and Apple board member, told The Wall Street Journal that he hasn't seen the film, but believes "a whole generation is going to think of him in a different way if they see a movie that depicts him in a negative way." Producer Scott Rudin said Laurene Powell Jobs was invited to help develop the film, but declined. "She refused to discuss anything in Aaron's script that bothered her despite my repeated entreaties," Rudin said. She "continued to say how much she disliked the book, and that any movie based on the book could not possibly be accurate." Laurene Powell Jobs declined The Wall Street Journal's request for comment.
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