Steve Jobs 'biopic' fails at box office

Despite a lot of early hype and buzz, the Aaron Sorkin penned and Danny Boyle directed Steve Jobs biopic, which opened last weekend, bombed at the box office early on.

 The movie, which stars Michael Fassbender as the titular character and Apple Inc's iconic founder, earned a paltry US $ 7.3 million, which is just a bit more than Ashton Kutcher's execrable Jobs movie from 2013, which made US $ 6.7 million on its opening weekend.

Considered a contender for this year's Academy Awards, or at least a strong prospect for various nominations from some of the high-powered supporting cast including Kate Winslet and Jeff Daniels, it's unlikely that Steve Jobs will see the success and following that The Social Network, Sorkin's film about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, enjoyed. 

A story told in three parts and focusing on three massive Apple product launches, the Steve Jobs biopic was supposedly based on the bestselling Walter Isaacson biography, yet is more of an impressionistic view of who Steve Jobs was as a person. The movie seems to focus on Jobs' relationship with his daughter Lisa, it also seems to focus on the more negative aspects of his personality, to an extent that many who knew and worked with the man and saw the movie felt a more balanced portrayal of Jobs' personality. 

Steve Jobs, has been heavily promoted and advertised on TV, billboards, the side of commuter buses and even on banner ads on popular websites. The ambition behind the film is lofty, it has been likened to Citizen Kane, (considered the best movie ever and Orson Welles' masterpiece, which was a biopic focusing on the rise and inevitable fall of William Randolph Hearst0. 

There's still hope that it might pick up, or continue to show in theatres long enough stay relevant before the Oscars, but it is likely time to rethink the biopic genre and most specially the Steve Jobs genre of biopic as a viable and profitable topic.