"iSteve" Aims to Be Not the Best but the 1st Steve Jobs Biopic - East Idaho News
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“iSteve” Aims to Be Not the Best but the 1st Steve Jobs Biopic

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031913 iStevePromoFunnyorDie?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1363733855465Funny or Die(NEW YORK) — You can’t have too many Steve Jobs biographical movies. At least that’s the thought behind iSteve, a new Steve Jobs biopic from Funny or Die starring Justin Long as Apple’s iconic founder.

“Our goal was to be the first Steve Jobs movie out there,” Ryan Perez, the writer and director of iSteve, told ABC News in a phone interview.

Perez and his team wrote the script in three days and shot the film in five. It will be released on April 15 on Funnyordie.com.

Justin Long, who played the Mac in Apple’s “Mac vs. PC” commercials, won the role of Jobs.

“We put together a list of actors that would be great to play Steve Jobs, and he was at the top of the list,” Perez said. “He was a fantastic actor and totally committed to the role. He learned an 81-page script on the fly.”

Joining Long is Jorge Garcia, most well-known as Hurly from Lost, as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. James Urbaniak from American Splendor plays Bill Gates and former SNL cast member Michaela Watkins will appear opposite him as Melinda Gates.

iSteve, Perez said, will cover most of Jobs’ life, from his days working out of the garage in Los Altos, Calif., to the development of the iPhone and Apple as we know it today.

In addition to iSteve, there are two other Steve Jobs biopics on the horizon.

jOBS, starring Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs, had been due out on April 19, but was recently delayed.

Aaron Sorkin is also writing a Steve Jobs film. Sorkin has said his film will focus on a particular point in Jobs’ life.

Funny or Die, a comedy online production company, creates funny short Web videos. iSteve, which is going to be about an hour long, should be one of the funnier Steve Jobs films. But Perez wouldn’t talk up that aspect of the movie.

“I will leave it up to the audience to judge if they feel it is funny,” he said.

Some believe that might be a risky move — creating a parody of the iconic business leader and tech entrepreneur who passed away from pancreatic cancer at the age of 56. However, Perez said, he isn’t worried about that.

“We think there is room for many takes on the Steve Jobs story, and we are honored to be throwing our hats in the ring,” he said. “May the best Jobs win.”

But, in Perez’s and Funny or Die’s minds, it has already won. It will be the first Jobs biopic to market.

“Our goal was to make this the fastest and do it first,” he said. “We pulled it off.”

And that might be the start of the parody or irony, because Jobs was never the first-to-market kind of guy.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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