You can usually rely on the iTunes Movie Trailers site to showcase the very best upcoming releases, but there’s one promotional reel you won’t find on there: The first teaser for the new Steve Jobs film. The Universal Pictures flick is notably absent, so maybe Apple isn’t so keen on it — or maybe it’s just waiting until there’s a full trailer to work with.
The debut teaser/trailer/call-it-what-you-will appeared during the finale of Mad Men last week. We got our first look at Michael Fassbender channelling the late Steve Jobs and Seth Rogen in full Steve Wozniak mode. What we didn’t get was much in the way of plot details, which makes a refreshing change in an era when most trailers are happy to give away far too much.
The film is being distributed by Universal Pictures, which has its own section on the iTunes trailer portal — the likes of Jurassic World, Pitch Perfect 2, and Crimson Peak are all present and correct. Perhaps Tim Cook wants to keep distance between his company’s site and the movie, or perhaps it’s just a coincidence that we shouldn’t be reading too much into. We’ll see what happens when a full trailer hits the Web.
The film is scripted by Aaron Sorkin, based on Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography of Jobs, and is scheduled to hit theaters on October 9. Originally a Sony Pictures property, a number of big names have been associated with the project before dropping out, including David Fincher, Christian Bale, and Natalie Portman.
Universal will be hoping the movie does better than Jobs, the 2013 film starring Ashton Kutcher in the lead role. That release did badly at the box office and failed to impress critics, so the bar isn’t set particularly high for this year’s retelling of some of Apple’s most important milestones.