How Terrible Will The Ashton Kutcher Steve Jobs Movie Be?

By Cristina Merrill | May 23 2012 1:11 PM

The more we learn about the Ashton Kutcher-as-Steve Jobs biopic, the more we can't wait to see the other one. The film -- not to be confused with Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of the late Apple founder's authorized biography -- has been met with skepticism ever since it was announced that the iconic genius would be portrayed by the philandering Two and Half Men star, whose film career highlights include being fired as the lead in Elizabethtown by Cameron Crowe.

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Model-turned-actor Ashton Kutcher will play late Apple founder Steve Jobs in a new independent movie chronicling the life of the genius hippie-turned-entrepreneur who put a "ding" in the universe. The casting looks right, but it isn't.

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Last week, Five Star Feature Films announced that the biopic, directed by Joshua Michael Stern, would be titled jOBS. (Get it? A riff on the iPhone/iPad/iPod. Cute! Wonder if the lowercase 'j' was Ashton's idea?) The film, scheduled for a late 2012 release, promises to be a rousing narrative of [the] business and tech icon that pulls no punches and does not speculate, according to a Five Star press release. The release also announced that some early scenes would be filmed in Jobs' childhood Los Altos, Calif., home -- which is actually pretty cool.

Photos of Kutcher dressed in character have been in circulation since earlier this month, and while Kutcher sort of(?) looks like Jobs, the casting decision has largely been met with scorn. This week, Kutcher ended up in the dreaded bottom-left quadrant -- the Lowbrow/Despicable category -- on New York Magazine's latest Approval Matrix. The caption: The first photos of Ashton Kutcher playing Steve Jobs: Oh, come on.

Fans are a little more forthcoming in their disapproval.

One woman tweeted that Kutcher playing Jobs hurts my soul, while one man tweeted his thought that a certain alien character from television would be more convincing in the title role: You know who would be more believable in playing Steve Jobs than Ashton Kutcher? ALF.

Technology entrepreneur Chris Dixon tweeted his own take on the casting choice: I am glad they found a good screenwriter for Steve Jobs biography. But does that mean they won't pick Ashton Kutcher to play Jobs? Please?

Not everyone is so upset, however.

#AshtonKutcher to play young ?#SteveJobs in movie . . . yeah, I can see it, one woman tweeted.

In other news, The Social Network scribe Aaron Sorkin will adapt Walter Isaacson's best-selling biography of the innovator, Steve Jobs. That biopic, tentatively scheduled for a 2014 release date, will also be titled Steve Jobs. Sorkin won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for The Social Network in 2011, and was nominated in the same category in 2012, for his co-scripting of the Moneyball screenplay.

What do you think? Will jOBS be a joke?