Sony Pictures lands rights to Steve Jobs biopic?

Written By Jordan Kahn

According to a report from Deadline, Sony Pictures is in the process of acquiring the feature film rights for author Walter Isaacson’s new biography entitled Steve Jobs (the first official biography authorized by Jobs).

We don’t know much about the 448-page book, other than the fact Isaacson interview Jobs’ close family and friends in addition to over 40 conversations in the years prior to his passing.

If the excerpt below is any indication, it could be the definitive story of Jobs’ life and include never before heard accounts of his day to day genius. The snippet below is Isaacson explaining the story behind the signature black mock turtleneck as Jobs remembers it.

The report mentions Mark Gordon as the biopic’s likely producer, but at this point nothing has been confirmed and Sony has declined to comment. I guess Sony has gotten over Steve Jobs’ comment about BlueRay being a “Bag of Hurt”.

Actor Noah Wyle, who played Jobs in The Pirates of Silicon Valley movie about Apple, Microsoft, and the relationship between their two leaders, Jobs and Bill Gates, will jump at the opportunity to reprise his role as Jobs in the new film. He had this to say to the Fortune blog:

“Are you kidding? I would give my eye teeth, in the heartbeat, of a New York minute. There are certain roles you wish you could tackle over and over again. That’s one for me.”

An excerpt from Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson on the black mock turtleneck:

On a trip to Japan in the early 1980s, Jobs asked Sony’s chairman Akio Morita why everyone in the company’s factories wore uniforms. He told Jobs that after the war, no one had any clothes, and companies like Sony had to give their workers something to wear each day. Over the years, the uniforms developed their own signatures styles, especially at companies such as Sony, and it became a way of bonding workers to the company. “I decided that I wanted that type of bonding for Apple,” Jobs recalled.

Sony, with its appreciation for style, had gotten the famous designer Issey Miyake to create its uniform. It was a jacket made of rip-stop nylon with sleeves that could unzip to make it a vest. So Jobs called Issey Miyake and asked him to design a vest for Apple, Jobs recalled, “I came back with some samples and told everyone it would great if we would all wear these vests. Oh man, did I get booed off the stage. Everybody hated the idea.”

In the process, however, he became friends with Miyake and would visit him regularly. He also came to like the idea of having a uniform for himself, both because of its daily convenience (the rationale he claimed) and its ability to convey a signature style. “So I asked Issey to make me some of his black turtlenecks that I liked, and he made me like a hundred of them.” Jobs noticed my surprise when he told this story, so he showed them stacked up in the closet. “That’s what I wear,” he said. “I have enough to last for the rest of my life.”

There’s certainly enough material to go on for a film on Job’s life, but would it be done in a way that accurately reflects his sometimes “cavalier” persona? Or would it be more of a tribute to his accomplishments and his career as a whole?

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