After being stuck in development hell for over two years, the Steve Jobs movie we have all waited for is finally here, and it is shaping up to be as good as it looked when we first saw the cast and crew’s names.
I mean, take a look at the cast if you haven’t already: Michael Fassbender stars as the title character, alongside Kate Winslet as Joanna Hoffman, former marketing chief of Macintosh. Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple, is played by Seth Rogen, and Jeff Daniels stars as former Apple CEO John Sculley. The film also stars Katherine Waterston as Chrisann Brennan, Jobs’ ex-girlfriend, and Michael Stuhlbarg as Andy Hertzfeld, one of the original members of the Apple Macintosh development team. The supporting cast also includes Sarah Snook, John Ortiz and Perla Haney-Jardine.
Then there’s the crew and the source material: The movie is directed by Slumdog Millionaire and Trainspotting’s Danny Boyle, written by The Social Network’s Aaron Sorkin, and based on Walter Isaacson’s biography of the Apple co-founder, the only one that Jobs himself authorized before his death.
[pullquote type=”left”]The first trailer for Alex Gibney’s explosive ‘Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine’ documentary is finally here[/pullquote]
Deadline caught up with Steve Wozniak at Telluride to get his opinion on the film, which partially portrays Wozniak’s own life as well with Seth Rogen in the role of the Apple co-founder. Wozniak was enthusiastic about the movie, calling it “authentic” and particularly praising Kate Winslet’s performance as Macintosh marketing chief Joanna Hoffman.[blockquote type=”left”]”When I caught up with him Wozniak told me that, unlike the Jobs biopic with Ashton Kutcher, this one is totally authentic. “I saw a rough cut and I felt like I was actually watching Steve Jobs and the others (including Rogen’s dead-on portrayal of Wozniak), not actors playing them, I give full credit to Danny Boyle and Aaron Sorkin for getting it so right,” he enthusiastically told me, He adding that of all the actors in the film he thinks Winslet might be the most likely to garner awards attention. The movie was portrayed as a “work in progress” to the attendees at Telluride, due to the fact that Boyle and his workers are still tweaking and editing parts of the movie. With just about a month to go until the film’s wide release, it’s likely small details like sound cues and other small edits that will make the Telluride screening largely similar to the final movie.[/blockquote]
Steve Jobs will be shown in cinemas from October 9th. It will be a little while before we’ll see the recognition, if any, from the awards shows but the takeaway from these reviews is very positive.