Steve Jobs Page #22

STEVE JOBS - Shooting Script 03/19/15 153153.

99 INT. CORRIDOR - CONTINUOUS 99

The hall is lined with blown up photographs of Ghandi, John

Lennon, Louis Armstrong, etc.--all from the “Think Different”

campaign.

JOEL:

(pointing to a photo)

Who’s this one?

STEVE:

Alan Turing. He single handedly won

World War II and for an encore

invented the computer but he won’t

be part of the campaign.

JOEL:

Why not?

STEVE:

‘Cause you just had to ask me who

he was.

STEVE opens the door and they walk into-

100 INT. BACKSTAGE AREA - CONTINUOUS 100

--where AVIE and his ENGINEERS are doing last minute runs and

adjustments on the iMacs that’ll be running the demo in a few

minutes.

And we can HEAR the CROWD out in the house...

STEVE:

(to AVIE)

Can I see a new shark?

AVIE hits a key and the screen fills with a picture of a

PowerBook G3 Laptop and a great white shark with its teeth

bared.

STEVE (CONT’D)

I like it better than the old

shark.

AVIE:

Sharks.

STEVE:

Sharks.

STEVE JOBS - Shooting Script 03/19/15 154.

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JOEL:

How many sharks did you go through?

STEVE:

A couple.

AVIE:

This is the 39th.

STEVE:

(pointing to JOEL)

We’re on the record.

AVIE:

39 sharks.

STEVE:

Okay.

AVIE:

You know what’s special about this

shark?

JOEL:

What?

AVIE:

No, I’m really asking ‘cause it

looks exactly like the other 38

sharks to me.

STEVE:

Let me see it with the cue. From

the profile.

STAGE MANAGER:

This is Cue 92B.

STEVE:

(reciting)

This is a side profile here. And

this is what it looks like from the

back. And one more thing: It eats

Pentium notebooks as a light snack.

(good)

This is the shark, I really like

it. Nobody gets it right the first

time but I should have been shown

this shark 15, 20 fish ago.

AVIE:

You probably were.

STEVE JOBS - Shooting Script 03/19/15 155.

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STEVE:

Lock it in.

STAGE MANAGER:

Ten minutes.

JOEL:

He killed himself by taking a bite

of a poison Apple. Alan Turing.

STEVE:

Yeah. There should be statues of

that man. His name should be on the

lips of schoolchildren.

JOEL:

The rainbow flag Apple with a bite

taken out, that’s where it came

from?

STEVE:

No, we picked it off a list of

friendly sounding words. But

wouldn’t it be great if that had

been the story behind it?

(beat)

Anyway, I can’t use him in the

campaign.

WOZ, sitting out in the house, calls up to the stage-

WOZ:

(calling)

Steve.

STEVE looks out...

WOZ (CONT’D)

I kind of liked the last shark.

AVIE:

(without looking up)

F*** you.

WOZ:

I wanted to ask you a favor.

STEVE:

My friend, a long time ago you

asked me a favor before a product

launch and I said no. You wanted me

to acknowledge the Apple II and I-

STEVE JOBS - Shooting Script 03/19/15 156.

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WOZ:

Hang on. If you’re about to say you

were wrong I want to prepare this

reporter.

STEVE:

I was one hundred percent right and

you were spectacularly wrong but I

still owe you a favor so name it.

WOZ:

Steve?

STEVE:

But it can’t be about acknowledging

the Apple II team.

WOZ:

Acknowledge the Apple II team.

STEVE:

(pause)

How about in private?

WOZ:

No.

STEVE:

Is this a prank (‘cause)-

WOZ:

(over)

No.

STEVE:

--I’m trying to remember that a 300

Megahertz G3 chip is equal to a

(600 Megahertz Pentium II and)-

WOZ:

(over)

Just the top guys.

STEVE searches his mind a moment for the path of least

resistance when he sees JOANNA come backstage-

STEVE:

Excuse me. Okay?

WOZ:

Yeah.

STEVE JOBS - Shooting Script 03/19/15 157.

100 CONTINUED:
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STEVE:

One second.

STEVE goes over to JOANNA-

JOANNA:

(quietly)

She said she’d rather not.

STEVE:

What do you mean?

JOANNA:

She’s sitting with her friends and

she said she’d rather not come

back.

STEVE:

Okay, tell her--take her aside, I

don’t want to embarrass her in

front of her friends, but tell her

I just scared the sh*t out of Andy

and this time nobody’s paying her

f***in’-

JOANNA gives him a look-

STEVE (CONT’D)

Alright, don’t say that. But do

your thing where you sound old and

wise because of the broad, tragic

European canvas of your life.

JOANNA:

You know I wasn’t born in a 19th

Century shtetl, right?

STEVE:

Please tell her it’s important.

STEVE goes back to WOZ as JOANNA heads out the door.

JOEL:

Everything alright?

STEVE:

Yeah.

STEVE continues to WOZ-

STEVE (CONT’D)

There are people around (here, man,

including--)

STEVE JOBS - Shooting Script 03/19/15 158.

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WOZ:

(over)

I know.

STEVE:

A member of (the press)

WOZ:

(over)

I see him.

STEVE:

Woz-

WOZ:

Just the top guys. The ones who are

getting laid off.

STEVE:

Listen. Okay? Last year Apple lost

one billion dollars. I don’t even

know how that’s possible. You were

less than 90 days from being

insolvent. I had three different

accountants try to explain it to

me. The whole place has to be

streamlined.

WOZ:

Start with two of the accountants.

STEVE:

I started-

ANDREA:

Joel, come with me, we’re gonna-

STEVE:

Leave him right there.

(back to WOZ)

I started with the Apple II team,

because we don’t, you know, make

that anymore.

WOZ:

Just acknowledge the top guys.

STEVE:

Have a mimosa and (relax).

WOZ:

You will not blow me off right now!

The top (guys--)

STEVE JOBS - Shooting Script 03/19/15 159.

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STEVE:

(over)

There are no top guys! On the Apple

II team there are no top guys.

They’re B Players and B Players

discourage the A Players and I want

the A Players at Apple and not

Dell.

WOZ:

They’re not B Players and I’m a

better judge of (that than you

are).

STEVE:

(over)

Less than 90 days to insolvency. In

part because somebody thought the

Newton wasn’t a box of garbage.

ANDREA:

Joel-

STEVE:

Leave him!

WOZ:

I’m talking about-

STEVE:

You guys designed and shipped a

little box of garbage while I was

gone.

WOZ:

--I’m talking about the Apple II

which isn’t just a crucial part of

this company’s history, it’s a

crucial part of the history of

personal computing-

STEVE:

For a time.

WOZ:

--and the least you can do if

you’re gonna downsize these people-

STEVE:

They’re gonna live in the biggest

houses of anyone on the

unemployment line.

STEVE JOBS - Shooting Script 03/19/15 160.

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