Acclaimed screenwriter Aaron Sorkin earned himself an Academy Award in 2011 for "The Social Network," a feature film that dramatized the founding of Facebook. Now, Sorkin is once again re-immersing himself in the tech world as he tackles the life of venerable Apple co-Founder Steve Jobs for an upcoming biopic.
Taking the stage at AllThingsD's D10 Conference on May 30, Sorkin offered a few early details about the state of the Steve Jobs project.
Sorkin admitted that he hasn't yet written very much of the screenplay, which doesn't yet have a title or a star and will be based on Walter Isaacson's popular biography of Jobs. (Another film about Jobs, currently titled "Jobs," is also in production; the film stars Ashton Kutcher.)
"It’s a process of procrastination, where you’re trying to figure out where the movie is going,” he said, according to TechCrunch.
While he may have a long way to go on the script, the former "West Wing" writer has obviously given the Steve Jobs movie and its main character a lot of thought.
"I can't judge the character," Sorkin told All Things D's Walt Mossberg. "He has to, for me, be a hero. I have to find the parts of him that are like me. I have to be able to defend this character....To put it as simply as possible, you want to make a character as if they are making their case to God why they should be let into heaven."
He also spoke about early hesitations he had about signing on for the project. From Engadget's live blog:
[T]his was a little like writing about The Beatles. There are so many people out there that know him and revere him; I saw a minefield of disappointment. [...] [A]ll I can say at this early stage is that you should think of this as a painting, not a photograph. There could probably be many movies about Jobs [...] Steve Jobs is a big enough person and led a big enough life to make multiple movies.
Aside from the Steve Jobs movie, Sorkin discussed his soon-to-premier HBO show "The Newsroom," which, in the same vein as the Steve Jobs biopic and "The Social Network," highlights the importance of tech in digital media.
"Obviously, digital media plays a huge role in the show," said Sorkin, as reported by Engadget. "There's a character that's extremely into the Internet and the power it has -- there's a clip where he looks at the uprising an Cairo, and how the people that report the news first get it themselves, which is almost always digital."
Check out the rest of Aaron Sorkin's interview with Walt Mossberg on All Things D.
What would you most like to see from Sorkin's Steve Jobs biopic? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
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