Steve Jobs biopic keeps tempting fate, adds Michael Stuhlbarg to cast

By Kyle Daly | December 17, 2014 | 11:49pm

Aux Features Film

That Aaron Sorkin-penned Steve Jobs biopic continues to defy the cruel and inevitable turning of fortune’s wheel. Though the screenplay accidentally contains an ancient Egyptian incantation dooming it to wander the earth forever, never to be made—and has already lost two would-be Steve Jobses, a director, its original studio, and a briefly considered Natalie Portman—its producers are still pushing forward with casting. Deadline reports that Boardwalk Empire and A Serious Man actor Michael Stuhlbarg is now lined up to play Andy Hertzfeld, a key member of the software design and engineering team behind the original Macintosh operating system.

Stuhlbarg joins a cast led by Michael Fassbender as Jobs and that’s said to include Seth Rogen as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Jeff Daniels is also believed to be on board as ’80s Apple CEO John Sculley (whom the real-life Jobs reportedly recruited with the too-Sorkin-even-for-Sorkin line, “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?”). Danny Boyle is still set to direct the biopic, which is now being produced by Universal Pictures. Consumers are expected to complain that Stuhlbarg is only a slightly updated version of last year’s model—when Elden Henson played Hertzfeld in 2013’s Ashton Kutcher-starring Jobs—with no new features, like wireless charging or an infrared port.