Steve Jobs, the movie: Aaron Sorkin dishes

GlobalPost

If there's one certainty on planet earth in 2012, it's that many, many people are obsessed with a man named Steve Jobs.

You may have heard of him.

He was the founder of Apple Computer who went on to reinvent the company into a digital powerhouse, along the way revolutionizing personal computing, tablet computing, music, mobile phones, animated movies, marketing, digital publishing and various other cool things that most of us can't now live without.

You may have also heard there's a Hollywood movie in the works about this fascinating, complicated and very problematic man.

As part of that project, famed screenwriter Aaron Sorkin is in the early stages of whittling down Walter Isaacson's best-selling tome "Steve Jobs."

Apple fans — and plenty of others interested in the intersection of business, technology, art and society that Jobs personified — are of course eagerly awaiting the upcoming film on his life.

So Sorkin — who penned A Few Good Men, Moneyball, The Social Network, The West Wing, and many other blockbusters — has given the Apple masses what they crave: details, details, details.

Here are some of the juiciest bits, according to Apple Insider, not to mention the 50,000 other stories about this that are now whirring through the Jobs-hungry web:

"One of the hesitations I had was that this was a little like writing about The Beatles,” Sorkin said. “There are so many people out there that know him and revere him; I saw a minefield of disappointment. I hope people don't say 'You really missed the big thing.' But that's bound to happen. All I can say at this early stage is that you should think of this as a painting, not a photograph.”

So forget the "cradle-to-grave" approach that worked so well for Isaacson, folks.

What will the movie be about, then?

"I'm probably going to instead identify the point of friction that appeals to me and write about that." Sorkin also said Jobs was "an extremely complicated guy, that I know for sure."

Sorkin was particularly insightful on the genius of Jobs:

"I think that what captured the public's attention about Steve Jobs is that he made things. I think nowadays that as Americans we see our future in service, that the days of making cars, railroads and big businesses is over. Steve Jobs said 'no, they're not. We still make things people want.'"

And on the big question of who will play Jobs in the film? He doesn't know (though a separate project has reportedly hired Aston Kutcher to play him).

But don't worry, Apple fans:

"Steve jobs is a big enough person that there can be multiple movies about him," Sorkin added.

And yes, there's video, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal's All Things D, which hosted the chat:

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