Tech

'Steve Jobs’ film rakes in just $7.2M on opening weekend

Steve Jobs movie flops
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Steve Jobs movie flops

"Steve Jobs", the new movie about the Apple co-founder, saw disappointing numbers at the box office on its opening weekend.

The film, written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Danny Boyle, raked in $7,267,095 when it got its U.S. release on October 23, according to ratings firm Rentrak.

This puts it just ahead of the $6.7 million earned from the 2013 movie "Jobs", in which Ashton Kutcher played the late Apple boss. "Jobs" cost $12 million to make while the new film cost $30 million, according to Box Office Mojo, a movie data company.

‘Steve Jobs’ film is not opportunistic: Sorkin
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‘Steve Jobs’ film is not opportunistic: Sorkin

So far, the new movie has only been released in the U.S. with other markets to follow. It sat in seventh place in terms of box office earnings in its domestic market and fourteenth globally.

Space film "The Martian" starring Matt Damon continued to top the box office, bringing it $45.9 million this weekend, and over $385 million since its release at the start of the month, according to Rentrak. "Hotel Transylvania 2" and "Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension" were in second and third place ahead of Halloween.

"Steve Jobs" has caused a lot of controversy about its portrayal of the Apple co-founder. Last month, current Apple chief executive Tim Cook called the movie "opportunistic" during an interview on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The film, which stars Michael Fassbender as Jobs, also came under fire from Apple's design chief Jonny Ive.

Sorkin said at a press conference earlier this month that there is a "dramatization of several personal conflicts that he (Jobs) had in his life" but that they are fair and his "conscience is clear" over the movie.

Disclosure: Universal Pictures is one of the production companies involved in the making of "Steve Jobs". Universal Pictures is owned by Comcast through NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.