Justin Long is playing Steve Jobs in iSteve, the newest Steve Jobs biopic. Unlike Ashton Kutcher's jOBS or Aaron Sorkin's in-progress adapatation of Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography, iSteve is a comedy made by Will Farrell's Funny or Die.
iSteve Movie Poster
The New York Times reported that the movie's script was written in three days and taped in five. It's set to air on the website on April 15th, and stars Justin Long as Steve Jobs, Jorge Garcia as Steve Wozniak, James Urbaniak as Bill Gates, and Michaela Watkins as Melinda Gates.
The comedy in the movie is intended to poke fun at biopics, rather than Steve Jobs. Producer Allison Hord told The Times that, “even the harshest fanboy critics will be able to laugh with us.”
The project originally started off as a short fake trailer for a fake movie. Funny or Die has done lots of that sort of thing over the years, and specializes in short form comedy videos. In fact, iSteve is the longest project the site has made.
“We were kicking around the idea of making a fake Steve Jobs movie trailer, and as often happens in a writers’ room, the joke kind of escalated,” Ms. Hord said.
Ryan Perez, who wrote and and directed iSteve, added, “In true Internet fashion, it’s not based on very thorough research — essentially a cursory look at the Steve Jobs Wikipedia page. It's very silly, but it looks at his whole life.”