Hopefully SONY will come to their senses and offer the job to someone who will understand the project and take it with the seriousness that it deserves.
Sorkin is absolutely the wrong choice. Yup, the Social Network was somewhat entertaining but it was on the whole a work of fiction. The screenplay was based on a FICTIONAL source with wildly misrepresented facts and distorted character portrayals.
THIS film should have a serious director/screenwriter with a track record of bringing non-fiction biographical epics to the big screen. Someone who is good at TV sitcoms, ripping off bad novels, making up dialogue that never took place is not the right candidate to adapt Isaacson's work.
A better selection would be someone like Oliver Stone (just as an example) who has done films about business (Wall Street) and has been doing biographical epics (Born on the 4th, The Doors, JFK, Nixon, Alexandar) for most of his career.
For those uncomfortable with Stone doing the screenplay, Warren Beatty is someone who has had experience writing and directing an award-winning biographical epic -- Reds. This film had to cover several decades in the main character's (John Reed) life and was ruthelessly attentive to the historical record as reported. The first 40 minutes or so of Reds uses the technique of having real friends and associates (most were elderly in 1981) tell their stories, and recall events about John Reed. This section of the film was called the "Witnesses".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reds_(film)
The standard for this film needs to be something higher than a made for TV movie. Done right, it will be a 4 hour epic that will leave the critics spellbound. Anything short of that will end up being a dismal failure.
FWIW, only unknown but talented actors can succeed here. No need to recruit Hollywood stars or reprise average performances from POSV. There are incredibly talented actors in theater all over the US who could do a far better job at playing the various periods of Job's life. The best way to ruin a project like this would be to have recognizable faces (known actors) play this role.
