Aaron Sorkin - FishbowlLA

Aaron Sorkin: Steve Jobs Biopic Will Consist of ‘Three Scenes’

Richard Horgan — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 14:00:20 +0000

During today’s portion of the Newsweek/Daily Beast Hero Summit in Washington D.C., Aaron Sorkin provided a tantalizing preview of the script structure he is relying on to adapt Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography.

Per a report by the publication’s TV critic Jace Lacob, here’s what Sorkin told Tina Brown:

“I hope I don’t get killed by the studio for giving too much away,” Sorkin said, “but this entire movie is going to be three scenes, and three scenes only, that all take place in real time.”

Each of the three scenes will run 30 minutes in length and Sorkin said they will be “all set right before three major product launches.”

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Aaron Sorkin Writers-Firing Story Turns Into Unholy TCA, Twitter Mess

Richard Horgan — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 11:00:58 +0000

Yesterday at the TCA, The Newsroom writer-creator Aaron Sorkin hung a reporter out to dry. In a fashion so shocking it probably merits serious consideration as a Season Two subplot.

From Washington Post TV writer Lisa de Moraes’ account of the Beverly Hilton HBO proceedings:

Sorkin took a moment to tell the critics that (a) the writing staff on the show had not been fired; and (b) he had not kept on staff an ex-girlfriend — two elements of a story that had been reported somewhere and picked up everywhere, maybe even by some of those in the room.

“Seeing that in print is scaring the hell out of the writing staff,” Sorkin said. “They’re acting very strange. They’re coming to work early, being polite to me, and I want the old gang back. I love the writing staff.”

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Aaron Sorkin Cans His Newsroom Writing Staff

Matthew Fleischer — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 15:00:08 +0000

The Daily is reporting that Aaron Sorkin has gotten rid of his entire Newsroom writing staff, with the exception of his ex-girlfriend Corinne Kinsbury.

“Every year each show reassesses the needs of its writing staffs. This process is nothing out of the ordinary,” an HBO rep told The Daily.

The Newsroom had 10 credited writers in its premiere season. HBO renewed the show for a second season after its second show aired.

Update – 08/01/12: During the TCA panel for The Newsroom, Sorkin denied both aspects of The Daily article, saying he had not fired the writing staff and Kinsbury never was his girlfriend:

“Seeing that in print is scaring the hell out of the writing staff,” Sorkin said. “They’re acting very strange. They’re coming to work early, being polite to me, and I want the old gang back. I love the writing staff.”

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Creator of ‘Sorkinisms’ Video Chats with Romenesko

Pandora Young — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 18:38:39 +0000

Media blogger Jim Romenesko tracked down Kevin Porter, the 22-year-old Los Angeles resident behind of the “Sorkinisms: A Supercut” video that went viral this week. Porter, a professional video producer, told Romenesko he’d been working on the video that highlights Aaron Sorkin’s penchant for recycled dialogue since 2010, but picked up the pace a few months ago to have it finished in time for the Newsroom premiere.

The video went viral shortly after being posted to YouTube on Monday morning, much to Porter’s surprise.

“I definitely underestimated people’s interest in it,” he told Romenesko. “I estimated it would get probably a couple of thousand view the first week. But the reaction has been larger than I ever imagined. Did I think the LA Times, Entertainment Weekly, Grantland and the Huffington Post would pick it up? I didn’t.”

Porter, a long time Sorkin fan, wrote on Twitter that he’s thinking about doing a follow-up video: “Maybe Part II premieres once The Newsroom season is over. There’ll be loads of material.”

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The Recycled Dialogue of Aaron Sorkin

Pandora Young — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:22:55 +0000

Aaron Sorkin, it seems, has a tendency to repeat himself.

The video’s editor, Kevin Porter, calls the supercut a tribute to Sorkin. He says, “This is not intended as a critique but rather a playful excursion through Sorkin’s wonderful world of words.”

We’ll be listening for these “Sorkinisms” while watching future episodes of The Newsroom. Should make for an absolutely wretched drinking game.

Hat tip Buzzfeed.

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HBO Releases New Trailer for The Newsroom

Pandora Young — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 11:39:50 +0000

A promising second trailer for Aaron Sorkin‘s new HBO drama The Newsroom premiered Sunday night prior to Game of Thrones. The show stars Jeff Daniels as Will McAvoy, a network news anchor struggling to honor journalistic ethics in the face of soulless corporate demands, Emily Mortimer as his executive producer, and Jane Fonda as the scary media mogul who owns their asses.

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Aaron Sorkin’s Newsroom Trailer Is Out

Matthew Fleischer — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 14:00:14 +0000

The trailer for Aaron Sorkin‘s new HBO show The Newsroom is making its way across the Interwebz. Based on the two minutes above, The Atlantic calls it “Network with a Blackberry,” Gawker says Sorkin “loathes the Internet, youth” and Big Hollywood inexplicably defends the notion that gay marriage causes hurricanes.

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Aaron Sorkin’s Fictional Cable Network Gets a Name: Atlantis Cable News

Matthew Fleischer — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:26:53 +0000

Our cousins over at TVNewser dug up some interesting details today on Aaron Sorkin‘s new HBO show The Newsroom–about the cable news biz. Turns out a new name has been given to the fictional network at the heart of the show: Atlantis Cable News. Sorkin’s script originally called the channel UBS in honor of the great film Network. But for branding reasons, the change was made.

HBO has commisioned a fake news website back the new name: www.atlantiscablenews.com. The page is blank now, but TVNewser has a mock-up of the site-to-be.

The Newsroom will make its debut sometime this summer, possibly on Sunday, June 24th after the season premiere of True Blood.

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Australian Politician Lifts Lines from a Michael Douglas American President Speech

Matthew Fleischer — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:45:01 +0000

Australian House of Representatives leader Anthony Albanese was just busted lifting lines from the 1995 film The American President, written by Aaron Sorkin, in a speech to the National Press Club of Australia.

Here is the part of Albanese’s speech in question:

“In Australia we have serious challenges to solve and we need serious people to solve them. Unfortunately, Tony Abbott is not the least bit interested in fixing anything. He is only interested in two things: making Australians afraid of it and telling them who’s to blame for it.”

And here’s are Sorkin’s lines delivered by Michael Douglas in the film:

“We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it.”

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EXCLUSIVE: Getting to Know an LA Times ‘Gossip’ Queen

Richard Horgan — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 17:00:38 +0000

Our report last week about the record-breaking August numbers for LATimes.com included the rather remarkable stat of 3.5 million page views registered by the relatively new blog “Ministry of Gossip.” So we thought we’d check in with Christie D’Zurilla (pictured), the USC print journalism and chemistry major (!) who runs the site. She began her career at the Orange County Register before landing at the Times feature-entertainment copy desk in 2003.

“When we started the blog from scratch, the idea of hitting a million monthly page views seemed outrageous,” D’Zurilla tells FishbowlLA via email, “until we did it the first full month out of the gate (thanks, Tiger Woods and Adam Lambert). One of the coolest things about our August numbers and what they represent is that our readers came for a variety of stories across the board, rather than spiking on some huge scandal that broke on a holiday weekend.”

D’Zurilla, who shares the Ministry page with fellow blogger Matt Donnelly, references one of his recent items as an example of the fringe benefits that come with increased traffic. “I was the first person to hunt down and interview the Old Spice Guy, Isaiah Mustafa, in February 2010. Back then, it took eight days before anyone found the story and picked it up–even counting our LAT compadres.”

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Aaron Sorkin Whacks Web Journalism

Richard Horgan — Wed, 18 May 2011 11:45:36 +0000

For its latest “Media Diet” column, The Atlantic Wire caught up with Aaron Sorkin. The main takeaway is that this guy is very secure in his old school media choices.

The writer of The Social Network is famously not on Facebook and stays away from Twitter. He also abhors catch-all phrases such as “citizen journalist” and “media elite,” and has a problem with the Internet’s lack of entry barriers:

When I read the New York Times or Wall Street Journal, I know those reporters had to have cleared a very high bar to get the jobs they have. When I read a blog piece from BobsThoughts.com, Bob could be the most qualified guy in the world but I have no way of knowing that because all he had to do to get his job was set up a website–something my 10-year-old daughter has been doing for three years.

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Live from the Oscars Press Room…

Richard Horgan — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 21:15:15 +0000

Thanks to this year’s nifty Oscars.com “All Access” app (pictured), it was possible to watch winners visit the backstage press room without actually having to be in the press room, suited up in journalist formal wear. So bravo to the Academy for giving FishbowlLA the ability – from the comfort of home – to track the various reporter tactics attempted deep in the bowels of the Kodak Theater.

NPR’s Amy Walters tried to get Best Adapted Screenplay winner Aaron Sorkin to bite on a Mark Zuckerberg tease, wondering how the writer felt about his subject now. But Sorkin expertly dodged the Q-trap, commending Zuckerberg for his Saturday Night Live appearance and suggesting that no one would want to have a film made about their behavior at age 19.

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The Social Media View from Down Under

Richard Horgan — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 10:15:50 +0000

West coast freelancer Gerard Wright, via a Saturday, December 18th piece in the Sydney Morning Herald, tees off Time Magazine‘s selection of Mark Zuckerberg as Person the Year to relay some critical job seeking advice to all twentysomething non-billionaires. This holiday season and beyond, DON’T drink and status update.

Howard Rheingold, who teaches a social media class at Stanford University, has begun to notice [a resistance to sharing private life moments on social media] among his former students, now in their 20s, passed over for post-graduate positions or jobs. The reason for those failures? “Their drunken Facebook pictures,” he said in a radio interview.

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Aaron Sorkin Misses The Mark On Animal Rights

Pandora Young — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 04:13:19 +0000

So Sarah Palin shot a caribou on her lousy reality show. Killed it, butchered it, and stuck it in her freezer. This is one of the least offensive things Palin has done during the course of her political career. And yet it has Hollywood screenwriter Aaron Sorkin up in arms. In a hilarious and widely read rant on Huffington Post, he tears into Palin for making a critter snuff film:

Like 95% of the people I know, I don’t have a visceral (look it up) problem eating meat or wearing a belt. But like absolutely everybody I know, I don’t relish the idea of torturing animals. I don’t enjoy the fact that they’re dead and I certainly don’t want to volunteer to be the one to kill them and if I were picked to be the one to kill them in some kind of Lottery-from-Hell, I wouldn’t do a little dance of joy while I was slicing the animal apart.

Well, bully for you, Mr. Sorkin. But it doesn’t much matter to a dead animal how you felt about butchering it. It’s just as dead.

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The Social Network Wins Big at The National Board of Review Awards

Matthew Fleischer — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 14:17:31 +0000

The Social Network is cleaning up in the early awards season. The film just won Best Film, Best Director for David Fincher, Best Screenplay for Aaron Sorkin and Best Actor for Jesse Eisenberg at The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.

That said, despite sweeping most of the major categories, indieWIRE‘s Anne Thompson cautions against reading too much into the results as a predictor of Oscar gold.

The NBR is not always a forecaster of things to come, but rather a bellwether of where the momentum is at this moment in time. It also tends to be a bit New York-centric, and always does well by Sony Pictures Classics, which is releasing Mike Leigh’s Another Year and foreign winner Of Gods and Men.

Thompson has the rest of the winners at indieWire.

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