20th Century Fox
The last time we saw Leonardo DiCaprio in a Danny Boyle movie, he was in an internet cafe checking his email. That wouldn’t be such a striking image in most movies, but it is in The Beach, a feature released in 2000 in which the actor spends most of the running time in a secret, self-sustaining Southeast Asia island utopia. And now it’s an interesting place for the actor and director to have left off because, according to The Hollywood Reporter, their next collaboration is probably going to involve a lot computers, and there will likely also be a very significant piece of the movie set in 2000, which is when Apple began work on a little something called iTunes.
Yeah, that’s right, this reunion will be for the Steve Jobs biopic written by Aaron Sorkin that David Fincher recently departed. Cue the photoshops of Leo in a black turtleneck. Wait, never mind, there’s the one taken by Terry Richardson for GQ right over here.
Is that enough to picture the actor in the role? Is it easy to imagine him not only out-acting but also out-resembling Ashton Kutcher’s version in last year’s Jobs? DiCaprio has portrayed a number of famous people throughout his career, many of them people whom he didn’t seem right for given a lack of obvious likeness. But none were as iconic as Steve Jobs, not even J. Edgar Hoover. DiCaprio is the kind of actor who can make us believe the character of whomever he is playing, though, no matter if he looks like the person. He could probably make us buy him as Laurene Jobs if he needed to. His hair is already closer to hers.
As for Boyle, he could use an easy return to relevance following his lack of notice on last year’s Trance, which was his lowest-grossing in the U.S. since Shallow Grave. Not that it was a worrisome drop after two major showings at the Oscars (with Slumdog Millionaire, for which he won Best Director, and 127 Hours), especially since while it was one of his worst-reviewed movies it still is on the fresh side on Rotten Tomatoes. Whereas The Beach actually received the most negative reviews of his career. Speaking of The Beach, Boyle should cast that movie’s original star, Ewan McGregor as Steve Wozniak (he can gain a little weight, and somehow be made to look about five inches shorter for a the role). It could be a way to ease the actor back to good terms with the director who helped make him a star, and then they can go make the Trainspotting sequel, Porno, already.
This biopic, which Sorkin adapted from Walter Isaacson’s 2011 book “Steve Jobs,” will be produced by Scott Rudin, who has never worked with Boyle before but did work on two DiCaprio movies, Marvin’s Room and Revolutionary Road.
