Acclaimed Flop: The film was met with massive praise from critics and audiences, but failed to leave a mark at the box office, opening at just $7 million on its opening weekend nationwide, losing out to The Martian and Goosebumps. The 2013 Jobs film starring Ashton Kutcher was met with a weak box office final tally of $16.1 million domestically, along with tepid critical reception wondering what a crew worth its salt could do with the subject. Enter Danny Boyle, Aaron Sorkin, an All-Star Cast, and a rapturous critical response, and in the end, its final U.S. total was $17.7 million, nearly identical to its counterpart.
Approval of God: Steve Wozniak served as a consultant on the film and praised the final product for being able to capture Jobs' personality better than any previous portrayal.
Box Office Bomb: Budget, $30 million (not counting marketing costs), $60 million (counting them). Box office, $17.8 million (domestic), $24.3 million (worldwide).
Disowned Adaptation: Apple CEO Tim Cook and Jobs' widow Laurene Powell Jobs both lambasted the movie as an unfairly negative portrayal of Jobs, and the latter even personally called Christian Bale and Leonardo DiCaprio to beg them not to take the part before production began. It must be said, though, that neither of them had actually seen the movie at the time they made their complaints. Backlash also happened with Disney/Pixar boss Ed Catmull, who was one of Jobs's biggest protégés in his life; he stated Jobs would be "appalled".
Fake Nationality: German-Irish Fassbender as the Syrian-American Jobs, Canadian Seth Rogen as Polish-American Steve Wozniak, and Brit Kate Winslet as the Polish-Armenian-American Joanna Hoffman.
The Other Marty: Christian Bale was the first actor attached to the lead role, but he ended up dropping out twice (first when Fincher left, then again later after re-signing under Danny Boyle). Michael Fassbender ended up replacing Bale after he left the film.
Playing Against Type: Seth Rogen, best known for stoner comedies, plays tech genius Steve Wozniak.
Troubled Production: The e-mails leaked in the 2014 Sony hack revealed a good deal of debate between Aaron Sorkin, potential directors, and the studio heads over which direction to take the film in, and the project was eventually dumped by Sony altogether before being rescued by Universal. Once the cast and crew was finally in place, however, everything went smoothly.
David Fincher was originally approached to direct the movie (which would have made it a reunion between him and Sorkin), but he left over budget and creative issues.
