This week, the long-anticipated, formerly disastrous Steve Jobs biopic will finally arrive in theaters, with Michael Fassbender in the the lead role. Remember when just last year, the movie’s writer had no idea who Michael Fassbender is?

In October of 2014, as now forever chronicled in a leaked trove of manic, illuminating emails between top Sony Pictures execs, Steve Jobs was up in the air. Most of the instability of the picture seems to have come from the instability of the people trying to make it, who were alternately at each others’ throats and weeping into their smartphones in an attempt to get production off of the ground. Perhaps realizing that the studio was radioactive, directors and actors for the lead role of King Jobs the Tyrant were hard to lock down—but what about Michael Fassbender?

Email exchanges between the film’s well-paid writer, Aaron Sorkin, former SPE chief Amy Pascal, producer Scott Rudin, and other Sony execs were only able to decide on one thing: Fassbender is a pretty good actor with a giant penis:

On Nov 3, 2014, at 10:52 PM, DeLuca, Michael wrote:

Shame just makes you feel bad to have normal sized male genitalia, unless Aaron is Johnny Wad Holmes he’s in for a bummer of an evening. I’d steer mark to fassbenders roles in inglorious bastards where he’s basically Cary Grant, Prometheus where he’s basically Peter o toole, and x men first class where he’s just very very good. His role in 12 Years and his performance of it rivals Ralph Fiennes’ iconic depiction of twisted, racial sadistic violence as Amon Goeth for making horror watchable. Also very good as Rochester in Cary Fukunagas Jane Eyre. I’ll tell him.

Sent from my iPad

Sorkin had to be pushed to watch Fassbender’s (great) performance in Shame because he quite literally had no idea who Michael Fassbender was:

Given that the film opens nationwide on Friday, let’s hope, at least for Amy Pascal’s sake, that the rest of the world will care. But he was right about one thing: this is insane.

Photo: Getty

Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: E93A 40D1 FA38 4B2B 1477 C855 3DEA F030 F340 E2C7