The Golden Globe wins for “Steve Jobs” have taken some of the sting out of the film’s disappointing performance at the box office, Aaron Sorkin acknowledged backstage after winning the Globe for screenplay.
It was particularly hard because over the first two weekends in limited release, the movie set records but after it expanded wide, “The movie’s title became ‘Box Office Failure Steve Jobs,’” he said. “It took some of the air out of the pride we’d been feeling about this movie.” He was truly shocked by his win. “You could perform surgery on me now I’m so numb,” he said.
“Steve Jobs” proved a polarizing work among those close to its subject, including the Apple co-founder’s widow Laurene Powell Jobs and Apple CEO Tim Cook. Sorkin said he was happy with the final product and the reactions from those who were also characters in the film, particularly those who knew Jobs well during the 1984-1998 time span of the film.
He recalled a “touching” email message he received from Joanna Hoffman, the close confidante of Jobs played by Winslet in the film.
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“She said she has never known power and money to ever defeat artistic expression,” Sorkin said. “She and I both knew what she was talking about.”
But his favorite reaction came from Apple programming wiz Andy Hertzfeld, played by Michael Stuhlbarg. “He came out of the screening room and said ‘This is unbelievable. None of that happened but it’s all true.’”
Sorkin added that despite their criticism of the film, “I don’t feel at war at all with Laurene Jobs or Tim Cook.”
As for his next movies, Sorkin was cagey about the status of the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz biopic that has been percolating. He noted that he is moving forward on directing his own script for poker drama “Molly’s Game.”
