Steve Jobs Movie Tanks, Pulled from Theaters

The highly anticipated Steve Jobs movie penned by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Danny Boyle has done so poorly that it's been pulled from nearly all theaters. Last week it was in about 2,500 theaters across the country, but as of now you'll have to go hunting to find one of the 421 locations where it's still playing.

Michael Fassbender as Steve JobsMichael Fassbender as Steve Jobs

Data from Box Office Mojo showed the weekend gross for Steve Jobs was US$823,000, and that so far it has brought in only $16,684,073—a far cry from its $30 million budget.

Mr. Sorkin's script was very loosely—more like inspired—by Walter Isaacson's official biography of Mr. Jobs. That, it turns out, may be what kept many people away. The biggest complaint about the movie is that it isn't always factually accurate.

The movie's premise plays into that complaint well because it follows Mr. Jobs through his interactions with the people in his personal and business life in the minutes leading up to three major product announcements: the original Macintosh, the NeXT Cube, and the iMac. None of those pre-launch dramas took place, and many scenes were crafted so Mr. Sorkin could tell his story regardless of what was really happening.

That may have been enough to turn off many Apple fans. For some, the lack of factual accuracy was a serious issue, and seeing Mr. Jobs portrayed in what they see as a negative light was a big stumbling block, too.

Still, there may be another reason why movie goers opted to see The Martian instead: they just weren't interested in watching a film about Steve Jobs. Maybe it came too late, or it's a few years too early.

It's little more than a weak consolation that Steve Jobs has brought in only slightly more than Jobs, the biopic starring Ashton Kutcher and Josh Gad. The earlier Steve Jobs biopic earned only $16,131,410 in the United States.

The unfortunate part about Sorkin's movie is that it's a really good story loaded with the fiery dialog we've come to expect from his work. It does a great job of capturing the feel of being around Apple's co-founder during the company's earlier days and up through his return to the company. In other words, it covers the harsher and more acidic Steve Jobs, not the man he became before succumbing to pancreatic cancer.

A sequel movie showing Steve Jobs later in his life would be great, but that's not likely considering how poorly this one has performed.