Sony Pictures making deal for film rights to Jobs bio--report
Studio is striking deal for film rights to Walter Issacson's authorized biography of Apple's recently deceased co-founder, according to a report. Book is set to be released later this month.
It looks like Sony Pictures wants to release a biopic about Steve Jobs based on Walter Issacson's upcoming authorized biography.
According to Mike Fleming at blog Deadline New York, the studio is working on a deal that would give it film rights to the book, which is set to be released later this month.
Fleming says the film's producer will be Mark Gordon, who produced "Saving Private Ryan," among many other projects.
Sony, the studio behind last year's hit Facebook/Mark Zuckerberg flick "The Social Network," would not comment, Fleming says.
The biography by former Time magazine Managing Editor Issacson includes two years' worth of interviews with Jobs and his family members and colleagues, and is now set to be released October 24. The original date was November 21, which was moved up from the "early 2012" time frame the publisher originally announced.
Though there have been other biographies about Apple's iconic co-founder, who died this week, Isaacson's has been billed as the first published with Jobs' participation.
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"Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published," according to promotional materials for the book. "He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against."
The book is currently No. 1 on Amazon's list of best-selling books, based on preorders for the title.
CNET's Josh Lowensohn contributed to this report.
Update, 6:37 p.m. PT: The Associated Press reports that Sony is in "final talks" over the book and would pay about $1 million for the rights to the biography.