'Jobs' Biopic is a Bad Idea & Bale Knows It

Batman has bounced from the Aaron Sorkin Steve Jobs biopic. On Monday, Christian Bale announced that he was dropping out of the role of Steve Jobs (even though it was only reported that he would play the late Apple genius on October 23). The yet-untitled biopic was written by Sorkin and is to be directed by Danny Boyle, which has all the potential for greatness, but at this point, the project has suffered so many setbacks that it should probably just be mercy-killed.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Bale felt utterly conflicted about the role:

Sources say Bale, after much deliberation and conflicting feelings, came to the conclusion he was not right for the part and decided to withdraw. The script is said to be divided into three acts that detail Jobs preparing for three presentations that came to define his life and the life of the company he co-founded, lost and came back to.

A pretty emotional response from a man who can lower his voice so many octaves to play the Dark Knight. But! What will be will be. The movie was supposed to start filming this winter, but now that there's no title character, that seems suspiciously unlikely. Everyone is insisting that EVERYTHING IS FINE, but Bale isn't even the first actor to have dropped from the role — Leonardo DiCaprio turned down the role (thankfully) and David Fincher also was like, "nah" (which is where Danny Boyle came in).

Just let it go, y'all! No movie that is this hyped and this prolonged can be any good; it's just the law of the universe. Case in point: Serena, which was actually made a million years ago but then re-cut, re-edited, and apparently just hasn't come out because people have been "busy." Oh, OK.

And need I remind you of the previous attempt to honor Steve Jobs, the movie Jobs starring Ashton Kutcher? Even though Kutcher is an eerie face-double for the late tech innovator, the film was a bust (according to my bible, Rotten Tomatoes, it only got a dismal 27 percent rating). I also feel very strange about the fact that only three years after Jobs passed away, this would be the second film to be released about his life.

I understand that Jobs was a genius and we want to have some sort of grasp and interpretation of his exceptional life, but whatever happened to the rule that time must pass before we revisit history? To say nothing of the fact that Jobs kept his private life EXTREMELY private, and it seems a bit irreverent to so soon display it on the screen. I'm not doubting that Sorkin could write a compelling, dramatic script for this project (echoes of The Social Network are bound to emerge) but I think this biopic is dead in the water; and if not, it should be.

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