After circling the skies for a respectable 24 hours or so, Sony has finally swooped in and snatched up the film rights to Walter Isaacson’s forthcoming biography of Steve Jobs, with Deadline reporting that the studio will pay $1 million against $3 million to buy it for producer Mark Gordon to develop. The studio has had past success turning the stories of iconoclastic businessmen into compelling drama with films like The Social Network and Moneyball, and the book—which just had its release date moved up to Oct. 24 in the wake of Jobs’ death—was already a hot property even before then, seeing as it’s the first biography of Jobs to get both his blessing and full cooperation. And right now, of course, Sony is striking while the grief-iron is hot, with the outpouring of sentiment over Jobs’ passing manifesting itself in everything from bizarre My Little Pony tributes to surges in turtleneck sales. Clearly we’re crying out for the sort of closure that only a big-screen biopic can provide.
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