In a stunning move for a movie with creative capitalization in the title that seems to be based on the idea that the star kind of looks like the subject, jOBS has been delayed indefinitely. If I was Ashton Kutcher, I’d be crying into a groupie’s boobs on my space yacht somewhere right now.

The release date of the Steve Jobs biopic that stars Ashton Kutcher has quietly been postponed. jOBS, which closed the Sundance Film Festival this year, had been set by Five Star Films and its distributor Open Road for April 19. It has moved off that date, and a new date has not been determined. Five Star made a service release deal with Open Road before the festival started, and the film’s backers were eager to release on the month that marks the 37th anniversary of Jobs founding Apple. They’ve found instead that there wasn’t enough time to prepare for a proper release and create buzz for the film. [Deadline]

Not enough time to create buzz, huh? Really? You can’t just release another picture of Ashton Kutcher sort of looking like Steve Jobs again? That seems to be working so far. For a movie starring a television actor from the director of Swing State written by an unknown writer and produced by a guy who makes real estate textbooks, I’d say it’s already gotten an INSANE amount of buzz. But from the reviews, it doesn’t sound that bad. Maybe it will end up as a TV movie, where it probably always belonged in the first place. Here’s a nice plot rundown, courtesy of the Telegraph:

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On Friday, we got to see the first clip from jOBS, starring Josh Gad as Steve Wozniak and Ashton Kutcher as Kelso Jobs, the team who founded Apple Computers in Eric Foreman’s Wisconsin basement. The clip had the town all a-buzz, with people who saw it raving, “We never had such interaction and roles” and “Our relationship was so different than what was portrayed.”

Okay, so that was just what Steve Wozniak said about it. Nonetheless, “jOBS” is probably going to be super good, because, Ashton Kutcher has been method acting so hard that he hurt himself, as he told USA Today recently.

Kutcher says that he started a fruit-only diet to prepare to play the Apple co-founder for the biopic Jobs, which premiered Friday night at the Sundance Film Festival.
The diet, which the film claims Jobs adhered to, ended up sending Kutcher to the hospital with pancreas problems.
“First of all, the fruitarian diet can lead to like severe issues,” Kutcher said after the film’s screening. “I went to the hospital like two days before we started shooting the movie. I was like doubled over in pain.
“My pancreas levels were completely out of whack,” Kutcher added. “It was really terrifying … considering everything.”
Jobs died of pancreatic cancer on Oct. 5, 2011.

If Ashton Kutcher isn’t a total idiot, the guy who transcribed that quote sure wants us to think he is. “Bro, my heart stuff was like, all like messed up!” “Your heart stuff? Wait, you mean your blood?”

This just goes to show you once again, method acting can be dangerous for those who only dabble. Remember when Jared Leto almost ruined his kidneys gaining 60 pounds to play Mark David Chapman? It’s not safe. You could hurt yourself and others. Leave the method acting to the pros, like Daniel Day-Lewis. Daniel Day-Lewis would’ve given himself pancreatic cancer to play Steve Jobs and cured it by playing an oncologist. A true method actor knows that method acting is about tricking yourself into believing things you know aren’t true in order to tell the truth when you’re lying.

Here’s a clip from Ashton Kutcher’s Steve Jobs biopic, jOBS, a film with a title so f*cking stupid it lowers the resale value of my computer every time I have to type it. (Does anyone else keep pronouncing it “Yobs?”). Kutcher appears to be playing Steve Jobs as Kelso, in a clip I like to think of as “Those 70s Nerds.”

If you’ll remember, there’s a competing Steve Jobs biopic project commissioned by Jobs himself that Aaron Sorkin is writing. Meanwhile, this one’s being financed by a guy who makes real estate textbooks and stars Josh Gad. Look, ma, it’s an Arple Merkintosh! Same great operating system for half the price!

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It seems like we’ve been seeing Ashton Kutcher play dress up since before Steve Jobs’ body was even cold, but apparently this is the first “official” picture of him as Jobs. Aaron Sorkin is reportedly writing a competing Steve Jobs biopic, but in the meantime, we have this one, which is apparently no longer called “jOBS,” but is still being financed by a guy who makes real estate textbooks, directed by the director of Swing Vote, and starring the guy who replaced Charlie Sheen in Two and a Half Men. The new, non-creatively capitalized “Jobs” (at least according to Variety) has been selected to play closing night at Sundance. I expect at least a moderately disinterested bidding war between Lifetime and Syfy for distribution rights.

[via IDLYITW]

Aaron Sorkin explains his process of stroking himself off.

Because he’s really quite something, Aaron Sorkin spoke today at an event in DC called The Hero Summit, put on by Daily Beast and Newsweek. Because I maintain a Nikki Finke-like rolodex of super spies, I had a FilmDrunkard in the crowd. It turns out Sorkin dropped some details of his Steve Jobs biopic, even though he apparently wasn’t supposed to. Meanwhile, Ashton Kutcher’s competing biopic, “jOBS” is looking more Jackie Jormp-Jomp every day, despite that brilliant title.

As for Sorkin’s version, Sorkin told the crowd that his Jobs biopic would consist of three thirty-minute scenes in real time, depicting the behind-the-scene events in the lead-up to three product launches, the Mac, the NeXT, and the iPod, eschewing the “cradle-to-grave structure” of traditional biopics. Three locations? God, I hope there’s lots of talking…

It sounds pretty fitting for a Sorkin project, though it will be interesting to see how Sorkin balances his admiration for Jobs with his utter hatred of the internet. I’m half expecting a Robert Oppenheimer-esqe scene of a regretful Jobs on his deathbed saying, “I never would’ve done what I’ve done if I’d known people were going to converse in 140 characters like a bunch of goddamned animals. God forgive me, take me away to that idealized past where people were civil, the one that exists in the minds of all Baby Boomers…” (*Newsroom intro music starts to swell*)

Meanwhile, our tipster tells us, Sorkin’s last conversation with Jobs before he died was apparently Jobs asking Sorkin to write a Pixar film, which, sadly, doesn’t sound like it will happen now that he’s gone. And to think what could’ve been. I like to imagine Wall E giving EVE a sarcasm-drenched YA THINK?! as they discuss EVE’s regrettable affair with a GO-4. EVE was weak, but it’s not her fault, that’s just how women are.