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The Woz hired as an adviser on Sony's Steve Jobs biopic

The Apple co-founder and longtime friend of Jobs will serve as a technical "tutor" on computers and also offer insight on the iconic chief himself.

Steven Musil Night Editor / News
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
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Steven Musil
2 min read
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak will assist Aaron Sorkin with his biopic.

Steve Jobs couldn't start Apple without Steve Wozniak, and apparently Aaron Sorkin can't tell Jobs' story without the Woz.

The Oscar-winning screenwriter has hired the Apple co-founder as an adviser as he turns Walter Isaacson's best-selling biography "Steve Jobs" into a screenplay for a movie project that Sony Pictures announced on Tuesday. Sorkin is best known for his Academy Award-winning adaptation of "The Social Network," an account of how Mark Zuckerberg built the Facebook empire.

The Woz, who stepped away from the company in 1987 but remained close to Jobs, will serve as a "tutor" on the company's computers and Jobs himself, according to a Reuters report.

Sorkin isn't sure what he is going to include in the screenplay, but he is certain that it won't be a straightforward biopic of the iconic Apple chief, who died last October of pancreatic cancer.

"I know so little about what I am going to write. I know what I am not going to write. It can't be a straight ahead biography because it's very difficult to shake the cradle-to-grave structure of a biography," Sorkin told reporters at a news conference.

Sony sealed the deal for Sorkin's screenplay for $1 million, according to the Web site Film. Rumors have surfaced recently that Sony is looking to get George Clooney or Noah Wyle to portray Jobs in the movie.

In addition to Sony's movie project, an independent studio is working on a competing film based on Jobs' early years that will star Ashton Kutcher.