Aaron Sorkin Gets A (Steve) Jobs

Aaron Sorkin coming on to write Sony's Steve Jobs movie (based on the Walter Isaacson bio) is great news. It means that the movie will not only be very well-written (as we always expect from Sorkin), but also that it might be even-handed. See, Jobs was a transformative figure in our culture, but he was also a huge, raging dick. And Sorkin is the guy to tackle that divide between personal pettiness and cultural greatness.

Sorkin is excellent at capturing the things that make great people great but also make them awful, and he'll be fearless with this story. I also think that there's a lot about Jobs that will resonate with Sorkin personally - at the very least Sorkin's the best guy to write about Jobs' druggier years.

Now comes the big part: Sony has to hire a director and a lead actor to play Jobs. Ashton Kutcher is playing Jobs in a smaller, indie movie that will hit long before Sony's version, so I guess he's out of the running. Because he probably would have otherwise been in the running, right?