Ashton Kutcher To Play Steve Jobs In Upcoming Film

An anonymous reader writes "Variety is reporting that Ashton Kutcher – who you likely recognize from That 70s Show, Punked, and Two and a Half Men – has been tapped to play Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in an indie film titled 'Jobs', based on a script from Matt Whiteley. The film will chronicle Steve Jobs from wayward hippie to co-founder of Apple, where he became one of the most revered creative entrepreneurs of our time."

Comments

First

[neo00]

of April?

Re:First

[rhook]

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday April 01, @23:28

Re:First

[Patchw0rk F0g]

At least it's not fucking pink ponies again.

In this case, I'd take the fucking pink ponies. I'm not a Jobs fan, per say, but NO ONE should be posthumously represented by Ashton Kutcher.

Re:First

[PopeRatzo]

I'm not a Jobs fan, per say, but NO ONE should be posthumously represented by Ashton Kutcher.

Given his acting skill, I believe Ashton Kutcher might be perfect for representing a posthumous Steve Jobs.

Re:First

[assertation]

Dated April 02
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2012/04/report-ashton-kutcher-to-play-steve-jobs-in-movie/1#.T3mlMtlAqnA

Re:First

[Phil06]

Douché

Re:First

[AlienIntelligence]

At least it's not fucking pink ponies again.

In this case, I'd take the fucking pink ponies. I'm not a Jobs fan, per say, but NO ONE should be posthumously represented by Ashton Kutcher.

Nor, non-posthumously,

-AI

Pointless, likely

[Stormwatch]

Will this movie offer anything that "Pirates of Silicon Valley" didn't? I doubt it.

Re:Pointless, likely

[Stormwatch]

Just thought of something else. Don't the other players have interesting stories too? Commodore and Atari immediately immediately come to mind. I mean, Jobs was an adopted child, call him a waaambulance: Jack Tramiel is a friggin' nazi death camp survivor. That's academy award material!

Re:Pointless, likely

[citizenr]

Just thought of something else. Don't the other players have interesting stories too? Commodore and Atari immediately immediately come to mind. I mean, Jobs was an adopted child, call him a waaambulance: Jack Tramiel is a friggin' nazi death camp survivor. That's academy award material!

This clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PPeHExUbqs
has some interesting stories from the Commodore 64 days told by Bil Herd.

Re:Pointless, likely

[19061969]

Yeah, it's odd isn't it? Pirates of Silicon Valley ended up with a giant Bill Gates on a screen looking down on tiny Steve Jobs like he would an obediant, well-trained puppy.

And since then, Jobs went on to business mega-stardom and Bill Gates became a genuine hero by trying to rid the world of lots of nasties like Malaria and Polio.

What's the hype?

[Anonymous Coward]

I still don't get why Steve Jobs is revered. To me he was just another guy who wanted to make a lot of money at the expense of loyal fans of products that were not even designed by him.

Re:What's the hype?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

I'd explain why to you, but I don't feel like going over the history of the iMac, iTunes, the iPod, iPhone, and the iPad.

Re:What's the hype?

[Dr Max]

Like it or not he made a huge amount of money telling certain types of people what to like. So much money in fact that he has influenced many other tech companies and their products for better or worse. Personally I don't like the man, or what he did one bit, but i do respect his power to lead a cult and make coin.

Re:What's the hype?

[rvw]

I have a much harder time working out why Ashton is revered!

Why he is revered, is that so difficult? Why he is chosen is maybe a bit more obvious after seeing this...

Re:What's the hype?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

It was his vision and it all started after his return.

You could make the same argument about George Lucas. When you liked Star Wars, it was Lucas and not McQuarrie, Kirshner, or Muren , and when the prequels came out it was Lucas and not Church or Tzu that took the blame. I realize the word 'Insightful' appears next to your post if you take Jobs down a notch, but that doesn't change the fact that if he didn't return, millions of households across the US woukd be very different today. This is inescapable no matter which word associated with him you redefine.

If you really think Steve wasn't that B of D, then you have to say Bill Gates wasn't, either. Go ahead, perjure yourself anonymously in case somebody wants to spend a mod-point on you. Educate me on how Steve wasn't really that involved even though his success was legendarily unique. The worst case scenario is I eat some humble pie and learn something in the process, I'll take those odds.

Re:What's the hype?

[Morty]

Engineers design to specs and requirements. Jobs tended to specify the high-level requirements. The engineers who worked for him are very clear on this -- Jobs was a micromanager who pushed hard for certain elements of design and usability. The Jobs approach was unique, and resulted in the distinctive Apple products of the 70s, 80, and 2000s. Unlike most CEOs, Steve Jobs had a close personal hand in the the successes and failures of Apple.

NB: I'm not a big fan of either Jobs or Apple. But his contributions are pretty clear.

Re:What's the hype?

[imakemusic]

Well he had to shout at them until they did it. Surely that counts for something?

Re:What's the hype?

[Sitnalta]

Because he made a company that's richer than most sovereign nations.

True, if he were born today he'd just be a cocky asshole with little or no future. But he WAS born in the right time with the right skills, and did something notable. Which is true for all billionaires.

Re:What's the hype?

[Morty]

Sure, Steve Jobs made big mistakes, too. Not just the NeXT, either. During his original stint at Apple, the Apple Lisa was a total faillure. And he did some pretty nasty things in his personal life. He certainly wasn't perfect, and he made some pretty collosal mistakes. All that said -- Apple's major succcesses have come to significantly outweigh their failures, as evidenced by the current market for iPhones, iPads, etc. A lot of that success can be attributed almost directly to the vision and ideals of Steve Jobs. I'm not an Apple fan myself, but I can understand why the Apple fans revere him.

Re:What's the hype?

[GameboyRMH]

Not to mention that he accidentally stumbled into history's greatest moneymaker, the App Store. Originally he was going to release the iPhone with no ability to run 3rd-party apps whatsoever (apart from web apps which was and still is more of a punchline than a solution as a replacement for all native apps - even ChromeOS has full offline capability), which would have made it nothing more than another quirky footnote in tech history, but then he caved to overwhelming developer pressure to allow 3rd-party apps on the device. This also led to the popularization of curated computing, the most damaging event in computing history.

Re:What's the hype?

[GameboyRMH]

I have even less respect for Jobs than Thomas Edison. Both exploitative businessmen with negative contributions to society that overshadow the positive, but Edison at least had more tech skill and actually did some inventing himself, and his negative influence didn't have such long-lasting effects.

Also I think that Jobs wasn't even a great businessman any more than George Lucas is a great filmmaker. Like Lucas, he needed to be surrounded by critical peers to keep his crazier ideas in check, and without this moderating influence things went all to hell (see: NeXT, a lot of early Apple projects). Another example of poor business skill is his quest to destroy Android at all costs because he thought it was a "stolen product." He was an artist and not a techie, when another product showed any hint of influence from one of his own he didn't see it as normal tech evolution, he saw it as plagiarism.

Re:What's the hype?

[GameboyRMH]

This is something all the Jobs-worshipping Apple fanboys overlook. He was a notorious asshole boss, known to berate employees until they were reduced to tears or fire employees at the end of an elevator-ride chat if they shared an idea he didn't like. These sudden firings were known to Apple employees as "being Jobs'd."

And the guy bought a new Mercedes every 6 months so that he wouldn't have to put plates on it under California law, and then parked in handicap spots everywhere he went. That tells you a lot about him.

Re:What's the hype?

[thesandtiger]

I think the problem is the idea of "revered" - I mean, maybe some people do "revere" him, though to me that seems a bit silly.

Jobs was an amazing businessman and had a genius for marketing, no doubt. He's certainly comparable to other legendary business types on those notes, and may be the best in history in those areas.

One thing I note on slashdot is that a lot of people get pissy when the business people who make things happen get any credit, and instead they want to focus on the geeks who invented stuff. And that makes a certain kind of sense, to be sure - I mean, what Woz did was impressive, and it's hard to be a good businessman without a good product.

The problem is this:

What would have become of things if it were just Woz? I sincerely doubt that Apple would have been anything but one of those things that barely anyone outside of a handful of people remember, kind of like some people nowadays remember some really neat but obscure BBS software from back in the day.

Woz made things that Jobs was able to work with to make Apple huge. Without Woz and his kit, I think Jobs would have almost certainly found some other opportunity to get involved with and turn into something huge.

I don't think Woz, by himself, would have done much but make really neat stuff to give away. Which is really nice of him, but he would be completely obscure by this point in time unless someone like Jobs came along and brought his stuff to the masses.

Personally, I have a lot more respect for the Woz than I do for Jobs, but even so I cannot deny that without a Jobs-type Woz would just be some bearded nerd who makes cool shit that nobody outside of certain very small circles ever heard of.

Re:What's the hype?

[Jmc23]

That's interesting, the hairpart shows the extroversion of their talents. The eyebrows shows one to be a lover and the other to be a hater.

Re:What's the hype?

[hcs_$reboot]

And Kutcher even holds an apple to add to the ressemblance.

Re:demi

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

BURN!

Re:demi

[gmhowell]

The idiot. I would've stayed with Demi. WAY hotter than most chicks her age.

But nowhere near as hot as the younger chicks Kutcher is capable of getting.

Re:demi

[paiute]

The idiot. I would've stayed with Demi. WAY hotter than most chicks her age.

Most chicks her age are dead.

Re:demi

[PopeRatzo]

Most chicks her age are dead.

Will somebody please mod this funny?

My wife had to walk over to my office to find out why I was laughing like an idiot (she was not nearly as amused for some reason).

Re:demi

[Nidi62]

My wife had to walk over to my office to find out why I was laughing like an idiot (she was not nearly as amused for some reason).

Enjoy the couch tonight, buddy.

Brilliant casting!

[WillyWanker]

Get a douchebag to play a douchebag! Genius!

Same reason Zuckerberg is revered

[walterbyrd]

He made a lot of money. Does not matter if you are a total scumbag, if you make money, you are revered. It's the American way.

I wonder if the film will protray Steve Jobs as an idea theif, and patent troll? Or would that be too accurate?

Charlie Sheen

[goombah99]

I was hoping for Charlie Sheen for the win.