A Steve Jobs biopic has already been brought to the silver screen, but chances are Danny Boyle's Steve Jobs will attract more attention. Under a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin and starring Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Steve Rogen, Jeff Daniels and Katherine Waterston, to name a few, this new film is game to enter awards chatter, and to start the conversation, Universal dropped the first trailer.
This first look comes from Collider. In true Sorkin fashion, this is heavier on the talking than the visuals, as we hear many voices discuss various things out of context. But as we watch the screen, which prominently displays a familiar figure, back-turned and looking out onto an empty stage, narrow in width, we also hear Jobs' life rise-and-fall, only to witness Steve's name come typed onto the screen. From there, we see Jobs the way the public knew him best — on the stage, promoting one of his latest, groundbreaking inventions as we then see glimpses of Winslet as Joanna Hoffman, marketing chief of Macintosh, Rogen as Steve Wozniak, Apple's co-founder and Daniels as John Sculley, Apple's CEO, as the trailer cuts to black.
It's evident the marketing team at Universal want to create the same vibes here as Sony did with the Sorkin-penned The Social Network. And while this trailer is not nearly as effective as that initial trailer, there's something haunting, or at least daunting, in listening to a rise-and-fall in short fashion. This teaser is initially brief, but it's nevertheless engaging — even if it does seem to rely a little too heavily on hyperbolic statements, a Sorkin specialty.
While the road towards production was rather bumpy, Steve Jobs is in full force and comes to theaters on October 9, 2015. Hopefully those involved make a film on Jobs' life that's more impacting and memorable than the Ashton Kutcher-led Jobs. It's hard to believe such heavy-hitters falling short, but like Apple's checkered history, stranger things have happened. Hopefully they don't, though. Maybe I should follow Apple's own advice and think different.
Check out the first trailer below:
Image courtesy of Zak Hussein/INFphoto.com