Jobs biopic to focus on first Mac, NeXT, iPod

Writer Aaron Sorkin has revealed his planned structure for a Steve Jobs biopic, which he currently imagines will involve three acts, each depicting the serial entrepreneur backstage before an epochal launch.

Speaking at an event hosted by The Daily Beast, Sorkin said he’s attracted to a Jobs project because “there’s no point writing about people who aren’t flawed.”

Jobs, Sorkin, was “atypical, and a genius, and extremely difficult” and so fits the bill nicely. The writer said he is “meeting with all the people in Steve’s life” in preparation to write the script, and found “he made all of them cry, but made all of them better and what they are doing.”

The author than said, after pausing to mutter that he hopes the studio doesn’t kill him, that “this entire movie is going to be three scenes” and that each will play out in real time. “A half hour for the audience is the same as a half hour for the character on the screen. And each of these three scenes is going to take place before a product launch.”

The three scenes will take place at the launch of the first Mac, Jobs’ in-exile NeXT computer, and the first iPod.

Sorkin aims to end the movie with the text of Apple’s “Here's to the crazy ones” TV commercial.

“If I can earn that ending then I will have written the movie I want to write,” Sorkin said. ®