The Wrap is reporting that Seth Rogen is being considered for the role of Steve Wozniak in the Steve Jobs biopic also rumored to star Christian Bale.
Bale’s involvement with the upcoming film has been much ballyhooed already. He ended up at the front of the line when Leonardo DiCaprio passed on the role.
There are high hopes for the new film, considering that another Steve Jobs-centered film, Jobs starring Ashton Kutcher, did not quite live up to expectations. It was even mildly panned by the man Rogen is in talks to play in the new one, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
“I had such high hopes for this movie and, oh, it was so hard to say that it let me down a bit and it fell a bit flat,” Wozniak told ABC News of the Kutcher-fronted Jobs.
“Ashton played Steve Jobs’ mannerisms so well but he didn’t bring out the thinking that makes us love Steve [and] the ideas that drove Apple forward,” Wozniak said.
Wozniak elaborated a bit more in a review he posted to Gizmodo.
“I thought the acting throughout was good. I was attentive and entertained but not greatly enough to recommend the movie.
“I suspect a lot of what was wrong with the film came from Ashton’s own image of Jobs… I’m grateful to Steve for his excellence in the i-era, and his contribution to my own life of enjoying great products, but this movie portrays him having had those skills in earlier times.
It wasn’t just Kutcher’s portrayal of Jobs that landed wrong with Wozniak, but other characterizations as well.
“I felt bad for many people I know well who were portrayed wrongly in their interactions with Jobs and the company.”
Perhaps the most damning statement of all that Wozniak made is something he actually attributed to someone else, but hints that the people represented in the Jobs film felt they were not fairly portrayed at all. That it was less a biopic and more a fictionalization.
“One friend who is in the movie said he didn’t want to watch fiction so he wasn’t interested in seeing it.”