Why Justin Timberlake Could Be Steve Jobs

Every so often, casting news can shock movie fans. When it was announced that Heath Ledger would play the Joker in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, the Internet lit up with disbelief. How could Ledger, an actor best know for 10 Things I Hate About You and A Knight's Tale ever successfully fill a role as iconic as the Joker? Or when Robert Downey Jr. was picked to be Jon Favreau's Iron Man. People were ready to bet that Downey, after many turbulent years, would relapse and the superhero flick would bomb. Maybe it's just me, but I think Ledger and Downey's selections turned out pretty well.

There's a film adaption of Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs currently being worked on. Sony Pictures is making the movie, with Scott Rudin producing and Aaron Sorkin writing the screenplay. The film doesn't have a director yet, but an even bigger decision still looms.

Who will play Steve Jobs? Well, I'm here to offer my own crazy casting suggestion:

Justin Timberlake.

With Facebook going public last week, I decided to watch The Social Network again. I'd tell you how many times I've seen that film, but I've honestly lost track. I think I have large chunks of it memorized by this point. Not only do I still stand by my belief that The Social Network should have won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2011, but I also believe that The Social Network is one of the greatest films of the past decade.

While watching film over the weekend, I started to think about the Steve Jobs film adaption. Like The Social Network, it's going to be a Sony Pictures film. Like The Social Network, Rudin will be producing. And, like The Social Network, Sorkin has signed on to write the screenplay. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if David Fincher was named the director ... just like The Social Network. Sony seems intent on replicating the success of The Social Network with Steve Jobs, and it makes perfect sense. Like Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs was the biggest innovator of his generation and happened to make a few enemies along the way. Sony would be stupid to not see Steve Jobs as a sequel-in-spirt to The Social Network.

A competing Jobs biopic has already begun shooting, with Ashton Kutcher playing the Apple founder. Paparazzi pictures of Kutcher looking eerily similar to Jobs making their way onto the Internet last week. With the exception of The Butterfly Effect, no one has ever really talked about Kutcher as a great actor. He may look like a young Jobs, but it remains to be seen if he has the acting chops to pull off the role. Kutcher's Steve Jobs project also lacks Sorkin.

My weekend viewing of The Social Network reminded me of something — Justin Timberlake was very, very good as Sean Parker. Remember, he received serious Oscar buzz that year to the point where some analysts were expecting to hear his named called when nominations were announced. The Social Network, a film being financed by a big studio, written by a big writer and directed by a big director, trusted Timberlake with a pivotal role in that movie. Timberlake didn't let them down.

A lot of suggestions have been made about who should play Jobs in this movie. Kutcher was an early suggestion, based mainly on his physical similarity to Jobs. Noah Wyle has been another suggestion, pretty much based on the fact that Wyle has already played Jobs in Pirates of Silicon Valley, a made-for-TV movie. Other names have come up, but they've all been lackluster ideas. Most suggestions are either actors who are too old for the part (George Clooney or Stanley Tucci) or are actors who just happen to look like Jobs (Kutcher ... and Tucci again). Sorkin has already said that his Steve Jobs screenplay won't be a straight biography. Like he did with The Social Network, Sorkin plans on focusing on one event in Jobs' life and then telling his story from that point of conflict.

The actor playing Steve Jobs will need to be young enough to portray the young Jobs but old enough to play the older Jobs with the help of some Oscar-caliber makeup. You can cross Clooney and Tucci off the list now. Is anyone going to believe that Clooney is a 20-something Jobs? Clooney's one of the best actors of his generation, but he can't pull that one off.

Justin Timberlake has been proving himself in movies like The Social Network and Friends With Benefits. We've seen that he can swing from wildly funny (Friends With Benefits, all those Saturday Night Live appearances) to serious (The Social Network and even when dealing with a father stricken with Alzheimer's in Friends With Benefits). The boy-band version of Timberlake is long gone, so let's keep N'SYNC out of any discussion here. Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch didn't keep Mark Wahlberg from delivering a performance in The Fighter that earned him an Oscar nomination.

Timberlake already has a relationship with Sony Pictures and Rudin. The studio and producer have shown that they're willing to trust their big properties with untested actors. The duo (with Fincher as director) proved that when they pasted every interested big-name actress and cast Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. That was a risky choice, and based on the fact that Mara was nominated for an Oscar, I'd bet they make a risky choice again.

When you think about it, playing Sean Parker in The Social Network was the perfect trial run for Timberlake to play Jobs. Smart, young guy who started his own business, faced down bigger companies and would eventually have to prove himself again.

Steve Jobs is already going to be a buzz-worthy film. Casting Justin Timberlake as the genius behind Apple would only drive that buzz to another level.