TheWrap has confirmed that "Two and a Half Men" star Ashton Kutcher is attached to play Steve Jobs in an independent biopic called "Jobs." Joshua Michael Stern ("Swing Vote") will direct from a script by Matt Whiteley that "chronicles Jobs from wayward hippie to co-founder of Apple and one of the most revered creative entrepreneurs of our time."
Fort Worth native Mark Hulme of the Five Star Institute is producing and financing. It's the first major project he's funded.
"I had the idea the day Jobs retired and I notice several IT and art directors at my company all in a buzz," Hulme told TheWrap. "I was observing that day how distractive his retirement was to the marketplace and I knew in my heart that his story was the film I wanted to do.
"We started the research and writing of the script just a few days later and never looked back," he said.
Production is scheduled to begin in May, while Kutcher is on hiatus from "Two and a Half Men," no doubt hoping to get ahead of a another project about the Apple founder at Sony who acquired the film rights to Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Jobs that was published soon after Jobs died.