Please Bring the BEST Steve Jobs Movie, Pirates of Silicon Valley, to HBO MAX April 7, 2021

Following the tragic death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, a rush was made to produce a feature film about his life. This was an absolutely pointless endeavor as the definitive Steve Jobs film had already been produced years earlier. The film was called Pirates of Silicon Valley and started Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates. The film was produced by TNT as a made for TV movie and aired multiple times over the course of one night.

The film detailed the people behind the start of Apple and Microsoft, and how they became so successful. I know that probably sounds like the lightest film summary you’ve ever heard, but trust me that’s all you need to know to decide if you’re going to watch it. It received favorable reviews and tons of acclaim from both critics and the real people the movie was interpreting. That’s more than I can say about those two “major studio films” pushed out following Jobs’s death. The film received an uncut DVD home video release in the early 2000s, but after that everyone seemed to forget about it.

So if TNT broadcast it, why hasn’t anyone heard of it? I have no definite answers to that question. As far as I can tell it has never appeared on any major streaming service. That means if you aren’t lucky enough to be able to track down a copy of it on DVD won’t even be able to watch it.

So why did this great film drop so completely off the radar? Well, people interested in seeing it again may have one hopeful possibility. As I mentioned before, the film was produced by TNT and the home video was distributed by Warner Bros. As far as I can tell, both are companies that are currently owned by AT&T. That major communications company also owns HBO MAX, and it seems any film, television show, or short that is owned by either company that isn’t already licensed out to another distributer is going to HBO MAX. Since Pirates of Silicon Valley was never licensed out to any other service, there’s no reason it couldn’t come to HBO MAX.

So, HBO MAX executives, if you’re reading this. You have a movie sitting in your TNT vault collecting dust that would cost you nothing to upload and will make a LOT of people happy to watch again. If you want to see my plea, here it is.

Oh, if you’re still reading this, why not indulge me for one last second? The film’s timeline ended in the year 2000, where it seemed Apple was doomed to be wrecked by Microsoft, but a lot happened in the past twenty years that proved that would not happen. Apple would go on to release the iPod, Mac OSX computers, and eventually the iPhone and iPad. Microsoft would go on to release the Xbox gaming console and multiple successors. HBO MAX could make a sequel and detail Apple’s comeback alongside the rise of the Xbox platform. I know for sure Noah Wyle mentioned in an interview he would be fine with doing a sequel, and the rest of the film’s cast appears to still be acting to this day.

Just a thought. It could be a great new positive for a service looking for their next big thing following the release of the Synder Cut.