Christian Bale has reportedly dropped out of the upcoming Steve Jobs biopic before negotiations for the film began and several months before filming is set to start, the Contra Costa Times reported.
Bale's casting as Apple Inc. founder Steve Jobs was first announced by the movie's screenwriter Aaron Sorkin in an interview for Bloomberg Television on Oct. 23.
"We needed the best actor on the board in a certain age range and that's Chris Bale," Sorkin told Bloomberg. He also said that Bale didn't even have to audition and that they only had a meeting to discuss it.
Sorkin added that Bale "has more words to say in this movie than most people have in three movies combined. There isn't a scene or frame that he's not in. So it's an extremely difficult part and he is gonna crush it."
The upcoming Sony project will be directed by Danny Boyle from "Slumdog Millionaire" and produced by Scott Rudin, Guymon Casady and Mark Gordon. The team is already set to meet with actors and actresses sometime this week before filming begins within the next few months, but with Bale dropping out plans will now have to change.
Sources say that after much deliberation about his upcoming role as Jobs, Bale had decided that he was not right for the part and subsequently withdrew from the project, The Hollywood Reporter claimed. When approached for confirmation, Bale's publicist and Sony have both declined to further comment on the matter.
Bale is not the first person to drop out of playing the role of Jobs. Leonardo DiCaprio was also in line to portray the Apple founder but ultimately declined to shoot his new movie "The Revenant." Neither actors had begun negotiations before dropping out of the film.
"Knocked Up" actor Seth Rogen is said to be in discussion to play Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, though no official casting announcements have been made.
The upcoming Sony film is based on the 2011 bestselling book "Steve Jobs" written by Walter Isaacson. The project has been in motion since 2012 and no release date has been set for the film.
