Seth Rogen bags Woz role in Sorkin's Steve Jobs biopic It looks like beardy funnyman Seth Rogen will take on the role of Steve Wozniak in the second biopic of Apple guru Steve Jobs, which has Batman actor Christian Bale slated to take the lead role. Seth Rogen and Steve Wozniak That's Rogen on the left and Woz on the right Bearded Rogen will play the bearded Woz, sources have …
How many bio-pics do we really need of the same person?
He's not (despite El-Reg's editorial team) a saint, or a famous general or politician, he didn't (despite popular perception) invent anything, he was just a successful business man, occasionally. He was also spectacularly unsuccessful on occasion.
I'm about as far from a fan of Jobs as you can get without completely discounting his accomplishments, but you're taking it a bit too far. True enough that he didn't invent anything, but he did provide the inspiration that led to improvements in an number of products. Tablets are a perfect example. Tablet PCs were a failed technology that had fallen into a niche market that conventional wisdom said no one with an ounce of common sense would touch with a ten foot pole. Jobs saw potential and guided the engineers to develop the iPad. Because of that one move we now have mobile computing as we know it. He may not have invented the digital music player, but the iTunes store was a huge step towards the acceptance of digital music by the music industry. We'd have gotten there eventually, but I honestly feel that iTunes helped get us there faster.
The man wasn't an engineer, true. His talents lay in other directions. He had a knack for seeing how to improve upon things in such a way that people would buy them. It's unfortunate that he was also very greedy and a bit of a wanker, but that doesn't diminish his genius in any way.
There was already an absolutely excellent bio-pic on Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniac (with a little bit of Bill Gates thrown in for good measure), and that was the made-for-TV movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley" that was released by Turner Network Television in 1999. I enjoyed it so much that I bought it on DVD and still watch it regularly. You can see the Wikipedia page for the film here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley
Noah Wyle and Joey Slotnick did excellent portrayals of Jobs and Wozniak respectively in the film, and despite being only a made-for-TV movie it was very well done and very compelling to watch. I say just hunt down a copy of this film from somewhere and call it a day-- I can't imagine any film involving Seth Rogen in any capacity as being any better.
I also bought a US DVD of this movie, Steve Jobs thought enough of it to ask Noah Wyle to open for him at an Apple keynote as his younger self.
I like the way they show the start of Microsoft and Bill Gates et al getting started too, the competition between Apple and Microsoft in the early years is a much more interesting story than just Apple or Jobs, plus young Bill Gates in that movie was way more entertaining as a character, both unsanitary geek and Machiavellian schemer.
Macworld NY 1999-Noah Wyle imitating Steve Jobs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIClAanU7Os
I watched Jobs with Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs. While he did okay in the role, the best film about Steve Jobs was The Pirates of Silicon Valley. Noah Wylie had all of Steve Jobs movements and mannerisms down pat. At the time, he even bore a striking physical resemblance to Steve Jobs.
I'm not sure if another Steve Jobs movie is really needed, though. RIP Steve Jobs.
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