Movie will not a be a full biography

Aaron Sorkin, the screenwriter behind 2010's The Social Network and the TV series The West Wing told reporters earlier today that he has little idea about what he's going to write so far in Sony's planned biographical film on the life of Apple co-creator and former CEO Steve Jobs. He did reveal that the movie won't be a "straight ahead biography" and that Steve Wozniak has been hired as an advisor.

The movie, which is not to be confused with the in-production independent project starring Ashton Kutcher, will be written later this summer for shooting at some future date. Sorkin met with reporters to talk about his new HBO drama The Newsroom. He said he was looking for a pivotal incident on which to hang the movie.

"I know so little about what I am going to write. I know what I am not going to write," Sorkin told reporters. "It can't be a straight-ahead biography because it's very difficult to shake the cradle-to-grave structure of a biography." Sony licensed the rights to Walter Isaacson's official biography of Jobs, who died shortly before the book debuted in October of last year at the age of 56.

Wozniak's role will be to "tutor" Sorkin and others on the history of Apple and Woz's firsthand knowledge of Jobs from the early years right up to his death. While Wozniak has not worked for the company in decades, he remained friends with Jobs throughout his life and played a pivotal role in the founding of Apple and most of its early products.

Sorkin indicated that he wants to focus his screenplay on Jobs' struggles to achieve his vision, saying that "drama is tension versus obstacle. Someone wants something, something is standing in their way of getting it. They want the money, they want the girl, they want to get to Philadelphia -- doesn't matter. He added that he just needed "to find that event and I will. I just don't know what it is" yet.

Rumors on casting for the multi-million dollar Sony movie have mentioned a wide variety of names to play Jobs, including the actor who played him in the 1999 TV-movie Pirates of Silicon Valley, Noah Wyle.

by MacNN Staff